Kawsu Ceesay, Chief Electoral Officer of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), yesterday testified in the D6 million forgery case filed against him by the state.

Appearing before Magistrate Babucarr Secka of the Kanifing Magistrates’ Court, Mr. Ceesay said he has been working with the IEC since the tenure of Bishop Telewa Johnson and Gabriel Roberts. He told the court that the Commission set electoral programmes, which the IEC Secretariat implements. He noted that he coordinates the activities to enable the Commission carry out its programmes.

According to Mr. Ceesay, in March 2005, the IEC was required to prepare a document on all electoral activities that were planned for the period 2005 to 2008, referred to as the “Donor Assistance Document.” He said this document was approved by the Commission under the leadership of Gabriel Roberts. “The documents contained the programmes and the required materials, such as institutional capacity development, human resource development, structural development, the conduct of deletion exercise, supplementary registration of voters and the conduct of all elections,” he said.

Mr. Ceesay said as the elections and other electoral activities were drawing closer, the materials for all the elections were quantified and sent to various donor partners in the country for funding. He said the Commission in collaboration with the Department of State for Finance and Economic Affairs (DSFEA) had a meeting which required donor partners to look into the documents. He said after that the UNDP provided an expert in the person of Simon Clerk, from the International Foundation for Electoral Service (IFES), an American based organisation, in the first quarter of 2006, was assigned to conduct a research on the matter; this contract expired before the completion of his findings.

This, he said made the UNDP unable to get the documents of the findings.
The IEC Chief Electoral Officer further told the court that, when Mr. Ndondi Njie was appointed as Chairman of the IEC in October 2005, Joseph Stanford, the then United States Ambassador to The Gambia, summoned a meeting of donor partners at the IEC office. This meeting, he added, was to see how far the donors have gone in funding the electoral materials. Mr. Ceesay revealed that after the meeting, the Commission requested him to give an estimate of the materials that would be required for the conduct of electoral activities from 2005 to 2008, more especially those to be purchased abroad. According to him, Mr. Ndondi Njie asked him to get a quotation from Code Incorporated, a Canadian based company that is specialized in supplying electoral materials, adding that Code Incorporated has been supplying electoral materials to the Gambia since the time of the Provisional Independent Electoral Commission (PIEC) in 1995.

 “Code Incorporated has art work of the IEC voter registration cards. I sent the quantity of materials needed, asking Code Incorporated to provide the IEC with pro forma invoice under the instruction of the Commission members”, he stated. Mr. Ceesay added that upon receiving the pro forma invoice from Code Incorporated, he presented it to Mr. Ndondi Njie, who told him (Kawsu) that the quantities were too high and should be reduced to 25% and send the revised figure to Code Incorporated in early Decenber 2005.

Mr. Ceesay said Mr. Ndondi Njie told him that President Jammeh has promised to provide the IEC with funds to the tune of D120 million and he ‘Kawsu’ should place a firm order to Code Incorporated for the electoral materials. He said Mr. Njie told him that Code Incorporated will be paid if they received the funds from President Jammeh. Mr. Ceesay noted that he placed an order to them, which he signed on instructions from Mr. Njie and faxed it to Code Incorporated, after receiving the second invoice that highlighted the reduced amount to $122,1071 and the terms of payment.

“I wrote a memo to Mr. Ndondi Njie giving him the bank details of the Code Incorporated and the total amount was shown on the invoice. Mr. Njie asked me to forward the invoice to Mr. Lamin Cham, the Chief Accountant of IEC, who told me that there were no enough funds to effect the payment,” Mr. Ceesay explained.
He finally told the court that he has made a photocopy of the said memo available to all the Commission members. He added that in February 2006, Code Incorporated sent an e-mail to Mr. Ndondi Njie, asking him to tell them at what time the IEC will need the materials, because they have already packed the materials in a container and are ready to dispatch the consignment.
Earlier before his testimony, the prosecution called on two of its witnesses before he closes his case.

Yankuba Bojang, an Assistant Records Officer at the Department of State for Foreign Affairs, was the second of the last witness to testify. Mr. Bojang informed the court that while he was in the office, he received a bundle of fax documents marked ‘exhibits 5A to 5G’ from the Canadian Embassy in Dakar through the Gambian Embassy in Dakar. He said when he received the faxed documents, he forwarded  them to his Permanent Secretary, which he was able to identified before the court.

Mr. Lamin Ndong, another witness who is a handwriting expert, under cross-examination told the court that he has examined all the exhibits, but the signatures were done by Mr. Ndondi Njie, the former Chairman of the IEC. Mr. Ndong added that he did not find any inconsistence on the signatures from exhibit 2A to 2H.
He was told by the defence counsel, Musa Bachilly, that he did not do his work properly, but Mr. Ndong maintained that he did his job properly.
Mr. Ceesay was represented by Lawyer Batchilly, while A M Umar stood for the State.
The case was adjourned to July 20.