‘WE  SAVED TRUST BANK. TRUST BANK MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO ACHIEVE WHAT WE WANTED’

SAYS PRESIDENT YAHYA JAMMEH AT KANILAI IN JULY 2008.

By A Concerned Trust Bank Staff, Banjul

Pa Nderry,   I do not harbor grudge against anybody. I am not writing because I want to destroy anybody. I am not writing because anybody is asking me to write. I am writing because as a veteran Banker, I have seen this institution failed twice. I read with ease the article forwarded by a colleague of mine in the Bank about the plight of the staff and the future of the Bank and I deem it necessary to add my voice to it.

Back in the days of Gambia Commercial and Development Bank, loans and facilities were granted to all Tom, Dick and Harry for no justifiable reason. The recovery of these facilities never happened then because it was all about the ‘BANJUL’ thing. Gradually, the Bank began to suffer drastically to the extent that Government had to sell the Bank off to the Meridian Group in 1992. All the bad loans that the ‘Banjul Boys’ created during the days of Gambia Commercial and Development Bank were passed on to the Assets Management and Recovery Commission. This is how the AMRC came into being because when Meridian bought the Bank they did not want to take over the bad loans created by the then ‘Banjul Boys’.

Meridian operated up to 1997 and had to be forced to close down due to a Global clamp down on their operations. Then Trust Bank came into being as at July 1997 hence Jammeh’s words ‘we saved Trust Bank’. Social Security was asked to buy 35% of the shares to enable government have the lion share of the Bank and the rest was floated.  This is the reason why our does everything the Government wants be legitimate or illegitimate.

When Trust Bank came into being, I was in Operations then as a Senior Officer already.  We thought things will go for the better but it is actually going for the worst. Government is making sure that the Bank goes back to the days of GCDB when all projects are funded by the Bank. Hence the same scenario is the order of the day now in our operations. There is nothing one can do about this because Government control on the Bank is very strong.

Additionally, the ‘Banjul Thing’ which we thought would be a thing of the past still prevails at the highest level. This is an institution that makes and destroys businessmen at the same time. Those that want to make it maintain professional working relationships. Those that they destroy are the loans they create through their own people and leave the accounts to go bad. These are the accounts my colleague said they don’t allow Recoveries Department to Recovery because the loans were not given out in good faith. The monies were given out and shared between officials and the account owners. 

Pa, I attended a wedding ceremony somewhere in Kanifing and met a very angry businessman. He told me I had applied for a facility of D12M at Trust Bank and was told by the General Manager Corporate that ‘we can grant you the 12M but the D2M will come to us’. Pa Nderry the guy said to me ‘I told him I need to think about it and left his office’. Now if they take the D2M who and who will share that money and who will pay that money because the loan amount will still read D12M. This is one of the reasons by Gambia Commercial and Development Bank failed. Both individuals and Government took loans they never cared to pay. This same trend is still continuing.

Beside the Jammeh Government using Trust Bank as a ‘Basket of Heaven’ as stated by my colleague, the officials too are drawing the institution to a melting point. The Jammeh Government and the Bank Officials are in the business together.  What prevails is reminiscent of the local term ‘OSSUSU’.  The Bank is merely turning into an ‘OSSUSU’ Club wherein depositors funds are distributed between Government and Individuals created by Officials for their own benefit.  We are talking about depositors’ money being used as a money making venture. This should raise a lot of concern about the future of the Bank as highlighted by the first writer.