Former Gambian Auditor General Criticises Securiport Airport Contract

The former Auditor General of the Gambia and head of the National Audit Office, Karamba Touray, appearing in a special interview on Kerr Fatou, has described the Securiport contract with the Gambia Government as a scam.

“But the fact is that, for me, the moment I looked at it, I said this is a scam” he said of the Securiport deal with the Gambia government.

In an extensive interview that lasted for a little over an hour, the former Auditor General made mention of an occasion they [Auditors] were summoned to State House after their audit report on the Securiport contract was published.

“We were summoned to the State House. Then, they were looking for ways on how they can mitigate the report from my conversation with them and the president was there himself. And my advice to them was “scrap this”. But that was something that they were not considering, they were seeing how best they can fit it into the system. That was very clear from that meeting, and that was the last time we were invited there for a meeting,” he told Kerr Fatou.

The former Auditor General argued that the Securiport is not adding any value to the airport except for collecting money from people and added that their role can be taken over by upgrading the immigration at the airport

“Apart from taking money from people, what value is it adding? The purpose of Securiport as the name implies, should be based on security reasons. What they need is to upgrade the immigration database to include this facet,” he suggested.

He highlights a number of issues with Securiport while also questioning the security of personal data they are collecting from the traveling public.