17/09/2025
Inside the multi-million-dollar Gambia gov’t venture that makes president’s nephew a major food importer
By Mustapha K Darboe The Republic
Before his uncle, Adama Barrow, became president, a little-known Amadou Sanneh worked at his property management business — Majum — as a cashier collecting rents at properties his uncle managed. Majum is a fairly small business whose estimated turnover in 2020 was D1m, calculated based on the D31, 000 tax it paid that year.
A son of the president’s late twin sister Hawa, in 2022, Sanneh made the National Audit Office’s list as one of the ineligible holders of The Gambia’s diplomatic passport.
Now, the 39-year old multitasks between seeking a third term mandate for his uncle and running a multi-million-dollar food importation business. His success is a product of a joint venture with the ministries of trade and finance which gives his companies ‘easy access to finance’ from a government-owned bank, relatively cheap dollars from the state coffers and guarantees for his companies’ loans by the Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of the Gambia.
The Win Win D230m facility
Or so it was meant to be.
By mid-2021, an election year in The Gambia, the dominant concern for the president was the rising inflation, which averaged around 7% that year. As a half–hearted attempt at reducing food prices, the ministries of trade and finance came up with a joint venture agreement with a private company, Win Win Oils (G) Ltd. Win Win’s overdraft facility, a credit arrangement allowing for overdrafting funds available on one’s bank account for a set period and issued to the company at 15 percent interest rate, was imposed on a government-owned bank, the now sold Mega Bank, with a sovereign guarantee from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, aiming to allow Win Win engage in food importation. As part of the facility, the bank pays directly to the suppliers.
Sources told The Republic that the Ministry of Trade selected two companies. They were Win Win Oils Gambia Ltd and Rahma Gambia Ltd. The Mega Bank, after a due diligence on these two, chose Win Win. An official at the Mega Bank told The Republic that Rahma does not have the capacity to execute the facility. “I think there was some kind of a process,” claimed Alhaji Kebbeh, the main shareholder at Win Win. “Not as formal as a writing application or so. I know some businesses were identified and from there they came on spot checking. They visited our office. They visited our warehouses. We were called to a meeting at the Ministry of Trade.”
At this time, the government of India, which placed a temporary ban on the export of rice, made a temporary exception for some African countries including The Gambia. And this facility was to bring at least 12,500 metric tons of rice to The Gambia. According to the internal records seen by The Republic, the government wishes to use Win Win to break the dominance of ‘foreign nationals’ in the rice import market and ‘bring the price of a bag to D1000’.
Registered in October 2017, an overdraft facility of D230m was approved for Win Win by Mega Bank in June 2021, waiving the rules and ignoring the red flags. A 90% share of Win Win was owned by Alhaji Kebbeh, a controversial figure currently in court for economic crimes. Kebbeh reportedly received D64m from 39 vendors to supply 58,500 bags of 50kg rice to the Government but only delivered 17,096 bags. This rice was part of the relief efforts carried out by the government to support vulnerable families during Covid-19 pandemic delivered from March 2020 to October 2020. The D230m facility for Kebbeh’s Win Win would come several months after this.
The ongoing trial is not the first time Kebbeh has had trouble with the law. After leaving Ghana, where he briefly lived, the Accra District Magistrate Court in February 2020 issued an arrest warrant for him for reportedly defrauding someone of GH¢978,500 — equivalent to US$185,915 at the time. In addition to those red flags, internal records at the CBG, the Mega Bank and finance ministry, show Kebbeh owed D14, 330, 607 to Keystone Bank (same bank renamed Mega Bank) which, after his collateral for the loan was sold in an ex*****on ordered by Court, dropped to D12, 098, 107. This debt is still with AMRC for recovery.
Kebbeh denied owing Keystone Bank anything or having any debt with the AMRC though part of the documents he submitted to Mega Bank was a letter from the debt recovery unit of AMRC indicating he agreed to settle the debt owed after accessing the loan. And after the transition to the control of the CBG, all bad debts of Keystone were forwarded to the AMRC.
Having ignored these red flags, in April 2021, the Mega Bank — with greenlight from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade — approved an overdraft facility with the government being the “sovereign guarantor”. The company could only provide a collateral, two landed properties, with total value of D15.5m— less than 7% of the total facility— though the bank’s board approved “collateral with sale value of at least D25m.
The credit risk policy of the bank reviewed by The Republic shows that the required collateral for any such facility is 150% of total. And any such collateral must be confirmed adequate by the bank’s retained valuer, according to their credit risk policy. On June 11, 2021, the Board of Mega Bank approved the overdraft facility. But there was another problem. The facility was above 25% of the capital (cash deposit every bank is required to have with the CBG) of the bank. As such, the bank can only go ahead with it after its CBG-appointed board’s approval, with final approval by the Governor of the Central Bank.
At the CBG, there was a committee for the recovery of bad debts from Keystone Bank. This committee was chaired by a former first deputy governor Dr Seeku Jabbi. And he advised against going ahead with the facility. “If you have a bad debt and it is not being paid, you cannot give another facility to that person (Alhaji Kebbeh),” Dr Jabbi told The Republic. On July 7, 2021, the internal records at the CBG showed that the first deputy governor requested for a six months cash flow statement of the company, evidence of the credit history of the company in the banking industry and tangible collaterals, among others.
He also suggested for Mega Bank to “syndicate” the facility with other banks to “reduce risks and concentration”, while raising concern about the debt owed by Win Win’s main shareholder, Kebbeh. After these recommendations were ignored, Dr Jabbi told The Republic, “I raised concerns that the loan cannot go ahead”.
Twelve days later, the Governor of the CBG, Buah Saidy, approved a waiver allowing the bank to exceed the credit limit that can be provided to a borrower for a facility. Known technically as single obligor waiver, the CBG is required to approve the lending by any bank an amount more than 25 percent of their capital.
“We did not have an option to reject the facility… We were given the option to choose between Win Win and Rahma which company to go with,” a staff of Mega Bank familiar with the facility who does not want to be named told The Republic. “None of the concerns we raised were addressed.”
Win win fails and JV was born
Several sources familiar with the overdraft facility given to Win Win claimed the presidency was involved. The president’s spokesperson, Amie Bojang-Sissoho, said “neither the President nor his office participated in, influenced, or had any involvement whatsoever” in the issuance of the facility. Shortly after the facility for Win Win started rolling, it became apparent that they could not deliver. Kebbeh told The Republic that two potential suppliers they contracted have all failed to deliver.
By the first quarter of 2022, the internal documents from the Ministry of Finance show the company owed the bank D15m in unpaid charges, disbursements and interests. Kebbeh did not deny they made some losses, as cited in the bank’s documents, but he could not quantify it. He said their losses were due to the failures of the two suppliers they contracted who have both failed to deliver as required.
In the ashes of Win Win, a company which records at the Company Registry show stopped filing returns by the end of 2020, rose JV General Trading Import and Export, registered on 22 December 2021.
On paper, the president’s nephew Amadou Sanneh owns 45% in the business, his wife Awa Sinyan owns 10% and one Mohamed Zeine holds 45%. Sources told The Republic that Sanneh and Zeine were part of the “beneficial owners” of Win Win, though they are not shareholders of the company, according to their registration. The only two collaterals at Mega Bank to support the facility for Win Win were pledged by Mohamed Zeine and Amadou Sanneh. Kebbeh said though Mohamed was working for Win Win as a marketing manager, Amadou, who is his “very close friend”, is neither a shareholder nor a director.
On 20 April 2022, JV wrote to the management of Mega Bank requesting for a transfer of the facility from Win Win to JV. In the letter, they admitted being part of Win Win though on paper, they are not. “The collaterals pledged for this facility are from the same members of Win Win Oil namely: Mohamed Zeine, Amadou Sanneh,” said a part of the letter. “… We are ready to take the whole responsibility of the facility including all the damages therein. This is because we have the opportunity for the Japanese Rice Grant, GGC Contract for the supply of 100,000 mt of rice…”
The GGC is the former name of National Food Security Processing & Marketing Cooperation (NFSPMC). The Japanese rice they referenced in the letter is a grant the government of Japan gives to The Gambia to distribute among the country’s poor. But the government often sells the rice. When asked if he was aware of the transfer of the facility from his company to JV and the letter to the bank to that effect, Kebbeh claims “…not that I can remember”.
On 11 May, the Board of Mega Bank approved the transfer of the D230m facility to JV. The decision of the bank went against its own credit risk policy which forbids the financial institution to grant such credit facilities to companies less than one year in their line of business. At the time of this transfer, JV was only five months old. “Everything with this facility was exceptional. If we had followed our credit risk policy, we would not have approved this facility,” a source familiar with the transaction told The Republic.
The Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Finance, all copied in the correspondences, transferred the underwriting it provided for Win Win to JV. “This document, as captioned above, is an unconditional approval to transfer the said government underwriting to the benefit of JV General Trading Import and Export,” the Ministry of Finance wrote on an addendum signed by Minister Seedy Keita and his permanent secretary Abdoulie Jallow and sent to Mega Bank on 20 May.
This underwriting replaced an old one provided for Win Win signed by ex-finance minister Mambury Njie. Seedy was then the trade minister. When contacted, Njie declined to comment on the story.
The minister of finance, under section 46 of the Public Finance Act, can issue a guarantee for a loan but only upon a risk assessment done by the Ministry of finance “and presented in written form to the Minister”. The beneficiary of the loan is also required to pay a fee to the State to “cover the credit risk of the State” unless the cabinet determines otherwise. There is no evidence this was done, and the President’s spokesperson said he was unaware of the facility.
On 11 January 2023, Sanneh and his partners changed the name of their company from JV to Ecotra Group Limited, records at the Company Registry show. At this time, the business was fully into importation of rice and cooking oil from mainly India and Malaysia, Customs records show.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Trade appeared to have lost track of the facility until they received questions from The Republic on 22 July this year. Six days after receiving questions from The Republic, the Ministry wrote to Mega Bank asking for the “total amount of the facility utilised” and the status of repayment of cost owed by Win Win.
An new facility for Ecotra
At the time Mega Bank was sold in December 2023, the debt on Ecotra’s overdraft facility— initially approved for only six months— was D175m. This was at least two years— from June 2022 to July 2024— after the facility started rolling. The facility was then extended for them and by the first quarter of 2024, the company paid their outstanding debt to D88m. The debt was restructured to another six months.
In July 2024, the bank, now in private hands, subsequently approved a D326.1m new facility for the company again, records seen by The Republic show. A similar D326.1m facility was given to the state-owned National Food Security Processing & Marketing Cooperation (NFSPMC) to import rice into the country. Our sources at the bank have informed us that though Ecotra currently paid a significant portion of this facility, it still has over a hundred million debt to settle with the Mega Bank as at this month.
In February, a popular Gambian social media site, What’s on Gambia, blew the whistle on the company’s operations and shortly after, the website appeared to have been taken down. On the site before it was inaccessible, Amadou— an electrical engineering graduate from Gambia Technical Training Institute— is described as a “goodwill ambassador for the Government of The Gambia, focusing on foreign trade and investment matters”, while Ecotra is said to have been “authorised by the Government of the Gambia”.
The company said it is expanding into construction, energy, flour milling, cement production and cooking oil processing. In November 2023, Ecotra Group was invited at an event organised by Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation for its subsidiaries and majority-held companies. At the event, the company revealed plans to invest in animal feeds and rice mill production.
The contract seen by The Republic shows the Central Bank issued a corporate guarantee for the facilities of Ecotra Group and NFSPMC. A source at the CBG told The Republic that the combined facility for Ecotra and NFSPMC was over two hundred percent the capital of Mega Bank as at the time of its issuance. And for any such facility above 25 percent of the capital of the bank, the regulatory institution— the Central Bank of the Gambia— is required to issue an approval called a ‘single obligor’ waiver, allowing the bank in question to exceed lending limits.
The capital at Mega Bank, according to a source from the Central Bank, is currently at D300 million and expected to increase to D500 million by end of 2025.
“Had the CBG not been involved in this themselves, this should have warranted a red flag from its supervision department,” said a source at the Bank. We contacted the Mega Bank for comment since the last week of July but we have not heard from them until the time of this publication. The governor of the Central Bank Buah Saidy, who also received questions from us since the last week of July, has not responded either.
Bought by ‘associate’ of the president
The story begins at what is now Mega Bank.
In May 2014, a Gambian commercial bank called Keystone Bank Gambia Limited was on the verge of collapse. The collapse of such a financial institution comes at a huge cost to the economy. It puts savings of citizens at risk, investments of companies and more. Acting with powers vested on it by Section 45 of the Banking Act 2009, the Central Bank of the Gambia took over the management of Keystone and nursed it back to its full function.
In 2022, the new owners — the Central Bank of the Gambia — made a decision to sell the bank. Though very little is publicly available about this transaction — some opposition figures already described it as non-transparent. The bank was sold in June 2023 for US$15, 250, 000— D906, 765, 000 according to the exchange rate at the time. The name of the buyer was KM Holding but it was not known who stood behind the company.
In March 2025, the finance minister Seedy Keita told West Coast Radio that he does not know the buyers or the country their company, KM Holding, is designated. However, the buyer— a 56-year-old Kami Muteba Kashama— sources told us, is a close associate of President Adama Barrow. Kami is a national of the Democratic Republic of Congo who has been appointed as The Gambia’s ambassador-at-large by the president. The registration documents of KM Holding show Kami holds 98% stake in the company.
In a response to The Republic in July, the State House denied any special relationship between the President and Kami, adding that the businessman’s appointment as ambassador-at-large “represents a strategic decision to enhance The Gambia’s foreign direct investment attraction capabilities”.
“The Office of the President clarifies that Mr. Kashama is not a personal associate of the President but rather a professional contact whose appointment serves the broader national interest in economic development,” said the Presidency through spokesperson Amie Bojang-Sissoho.
“The Ambassador at Large position allows Mr. Kashama to leverage his international business networks to attract additional foreign direct investment to The Gambia.” Gambia has no trade relations with DRC and the trade statistics generated by the Gambia Bureau of Statistics for 2023 and 2024 does not have the Central African country either as The Gambia’s import or export partner.
Barrow made two visits to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first of which was shortly after his second term election victory in March 2022— the first Gambian president to ever visit the Central African country. During his second visit in January 2024, only a couple of months after the sale of the bank was closed in Banjul, the buyer hosted the Gambian leader and his delegation for a dinner, according to the State House.
Unlike finance minister Seedy Keita, not everyone thought the bank was sold for the best deal possible. The records have shown that the Government has incurred up to D1.1 billion to revive Mega Bank. Shortly before the sale, the government wrote off over D285.3m non-performing loans, currently with the CBG to be recovered. This piles onto the D605.8m unrecovered toxic loan from Keystone Bank currently with the disbanded Asset Management and Recovery Corporation (AMRC), now a unit under the Ministry of Finance.
The CBG has spent D300m as the initial capital to nurse the bank to life after its collapse. In addition to almost a decade of management and investment by the CBG, the Megabank has a number of properties including two properties at AU Villa, the bank’s office buildings in Banjul, Serrakunda and Bakau. The company also has a compound space near the former anti-crime complex in Bijilo where it uses as its archive including a number of official vehicles. The Republic has no evidence these were also valued to form part of the sale.
“If they sell the bank at D900m, there is no profit realised. We have not recovered much of the bad debt of Keystone Bank with AMRC yet and there is no guarantee we will,” said a senior official at the CBG who does not want to be named. We sent Kami questions but we have not received a reply until the time of this publication.
Fact–checking and editing by Talibeh Hydara and Josef Skrdlik, both contributors to the story.
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