Gam Petroleum is tasked with proving that it owns 75% of PSC

Earlier, Gam-Petroleum General Manager Yero Jallow told the committee that the shareholders of the Petroleum Agreement include: GPA, SSHFC, Ministry of Finance and GNPC, which together hold 75% of the shares. The remaining 25% of the shares are held by Star Oil Group. “The shareholders are all institutional shareholders.”

The committee asked him to provide documents saying how the 25% stake of Star Petroleum Group evolved. According to Mr. Jallow, when he was previously asked to explain this evolution, he told the committee that the said shares were held by Star Petroleum Group when he assumed office.

He said that to explain this, one would need to look at the records and provide the required information.

However, Mr Jallow said his company had a deposit agreement with Apogee to store their products in the warehouse, just as they would with any trader with suitable products.

He added that the original arrangement was that they would supply the product to those who needed it, but when they were already here, the original sales agreement fell apart. “So they had to look for alternatives, which is normal in the oil and gas industry, so they looked for a terminal to store the product, and that’s when they found us, and we also needed the product when they came,” Mr Jallow said.

According to Mr. Jallow, Gam Petroleum does not have the resources to investigate every trader they deal with. “That is why we do not care too much because we only hold their property and control the product only after the agreement is reached,” he added.

“Traders are just trading goods. They don’t need to establish a foothold in a country before entering it. So why should we investigate reputation? We care about the product and whether it is good,” he said.

When asked to give the names of persons who acted as middlemen for Apogee during the sale of the products, Mr. Jallow said the company had its own middlemen, including Aurimas Steblys who was the commercial director of Apogee and Nana who represented Ultimate Beige Logistics, a Ghanaian company registered in The Gambia.