The US government through it‘s ambassador in The Gambia, Richard ‘Carl’ Paschall, has cited the government of The Gambia for failing to combat corruption.
In comments carried by The Standard newspaper, the man representing US interests in The Gambia, stated escalated efforts are being made to keep tabs on the trend of corruption and violation of procurement laws in awarding contracts.
He said:
“The other big area that we are deeply concerned is corruption. This is not something that is necessarily addressed in the [US] Fiscal Transparency Report but when it comes to the awarding of national contracts [or] state contracts, we are deeply concerned that the procurement process be transparent and fair, and that level playing field for companies that wish to come in and bid on projects, Gambian companies or international companies that wish to form partnerships… We are keeping a very close eye on that because…I think there have been some awards or some decisions to some infrastructural projects that have not necessarily been made as transparent as we believed”.
He added:
“We will continue to advance our interests and concerns that that [transparency and fairness] continue to be the focus in this government”.
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