Jammeh’s stolen money could be used for reparation

In March, the Gambia justice minister Dawda Jallow told the national assembly that 20 million dalasis [around 278,000 USD] were allocated in the 2025 budget to start the reparation process and that proceeds of sales from former president Yahya Jammeh’s property in Potomac, Maryland, in the United States, will be “repatriated” directly into a victims’ fund.

The seven members of the new reparations Commission were sworn in April in Banjul, the capital of the Gambia. They will have to review cases of victims who were recommended for reparations by the Gambia’s Truth Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) and identify new ones who were not included in its final report.

Reviewing the TRRC reparation process

In November 2023, the Gambia national assembly passed a Victims’ Reparations Act, to establish a victims’ fund and a reparations commission that will look into the victims identified by the TRRC. During its mandate,the Gambia government made an initial payment of the equivalent of 50 million dalasis [700,000 USD] in October 8, 2019, for reparations with the pledge to make a second payment of the same amount when the first one was spent – but this was never done until the truth commission completed its work.

the Gambia’s truth commission identified 1,009 victims. Following their assessment on reparations, according to the TRRC, 198 of those victims received 50,000 dalasis or less, whilst 757 victims were paid more than 50,000 dalasis [the equivalent of 1,000 USD at the time], including the families of the 54 disappeared West African migrants whose compensations were to be paid byTthe Gambia government through their respective governments.

“During the truth-seeking process, they had the mandate to administer reparation for urgent cases, but this was meant only to be interim. Now that they have closed, we have set up a proper reparations commission. It will take over from where they stopped, reevaluate even the criteria that was used and they may come with now a best practice standard for compensation and any other form of reparation, as the commission is not necessarily bound by the criteria used by the TRRC. They are to recreate a new victims database. They will accept other victims that never appeared before the truth commission,” justice minister Jallow said on 19 March 2025, before the UN Committee on enforced disappearances. The commission has a five-year mandate, with the possibility of extension.

Jammeh’s Potomac mansion

Jammeh was notoriousfor his lavish lifestyle, which was mainly sponsored through looting from public coffers. At the time he was taking over, in 1994, he was a lieutenant in the Gambia national army with no wealth. Neither his salary as president nor the businesses he owned could explain all the assets he accumulated.

In 2017, the Gambia government set up the Janneh Commission, a commission of inquiry that investigated the financial dealings of the former president. Jammeh has been found to be involved in various corrupt activities, including embezzlement of public funds and taking bribes from businessmen. The Commission found that Jammeh stole a staggering amount of over 300 million USD.

One of the assets bought with stolen funds is a 3.5 million USD mansion located in Potomac, that should now be given to his victims, according to the ministry of Justice.

One of the other ways Jammeh accumulated wealth when he was in power was taking bribes from businesses seeking to maintain monopoly rights. Investigations by the Janneh commission and by the US Department of Treasury revealed this was how the former president was able to afford, among other assets, the luxury property in the United States.

Around July 2010, the petroleum company in the Gambia was informed that their monopoly rights to import fuel into the country would come to an end by the end of the year. A day after the company’s monopoly rights were renewed, one million USD was transferred from their Guaranty Trust Bank account, accordng to both the Janneh Commission findings and the US Department of State investigation. This money was used to purchase the mansion in Potomac.

At the time Jammeh was still in power, Gambian activists in the US took actions to bring neighbours’ attention to the house. Ironically, one of the houses in the neighbourhood is said to belong – as reported by the Washington Post in 2017 – to Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, who has hosted Jammeh in his country after he lost the 2016 elections in the Gambia.

The long wait

During its tenure, the TRRC made partial payments to some victims, including urgent medical treatments during the truth process.

“We received 95,000 dalasis and now we are waiting to receive our balance of 405,000 dalasis. That is what they said. Our total amount is 500,000 dalasis. I know that the commission has been set up. I am yet to get any further concrete information,” said Isatou Kanyi, the wife of Kanyiba Kanyi, who was disappeared in 2006.

“Since 2021, we have been waiting for reparations. We’ve already written to the Gambia government that the money set aside allocated for our compensation is too small. It has delayed too long and it's affecting us. The families have a lot of burdens with the absence of our loved ones who left wives and children behind. So, the delay has created a lot of problems for the families,” Emmanuel Oduro Mensah, brother of Victor Oduro, one of the  Ghanaian victims,  told Justice Info.

“At this juncture, we are pleading with the Gambia government to expedite action to facilitate the processes, the moves, so that the reparation set aside for the families and the victims could be paid on time. The more it is delayed, the more its value depreciates. People are in dire need of that money,” he said, adding that, as the spokesperson for families of the disappeared West African migrants, he is being called by them “all the time asking for the latest information on the reparations”.

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