KR#13: The Gambia’s production scam

New investigations and analysis from ZAM and our network.

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In this edition of the Kleptocracy Report:

• Businessmen pretend to be manufacturing in The Gambia
• Carbon credits chase villagers from their land in Kenya
• Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders’ odd understanding of development aid
• Donald Trump’s “Christian” crusade in Nigeria and beyond
• A Ugandan president who keeps electing himself

Editorial

“They have been trying to convince us that they will produce Gambian tomato paste for ten years now”, says Swandi Darboe, editor of The Republican in The Gambia. “But I think they were never serious about it.”

The businessman behind a project purported to be manufacturing paste from home-grown Gambian tomatoes, Abubakary Jawara, first acquired much sought after, prime, land from dictator Yahya Jammeh, who has since been ousted, in 2016. However, ten years into democracy, Jawara and partners are still pushing the tomato paste story while building apartments on the land and still not producing any tomato paste. “We investigated and found that they are now merely bringing in tomato paste from China and then repackaging it. There is no network with tomato farmers, our farmers have not been told about the required kind of tomatoes, nor have they been instructed on how to grow them for this project. It is definitely not the kind of agricultural and industrial development that we need.”

The likely truth behind the plan, The Republic discovered, was simply to acquire the prime land and pretend to industrialise for export, which comes with tax benefits. “The businessmen built apartment blocks on it, now also partly used by banks and offices. Since land is scarce here,” -and ever scarcer, Darboe adds, due to destructive sand mining on The Gambia’s coast, another project by Abubakary Jawara- “these businessmen will recover their investment and make large profits within two years. Maybe one year.”

Meanwhile, The Gambia, like many African countries, is still an exporter of raw materials instead of developing manufacturing capacity. Are businessmen like Jawara to blame? “Yes, together with our leaders who are in cahoots with them. Men like Jawara know how to be close to power.” Some state officials do try to reign in the patronage network, Darboe explains. “Our tax agency first refused an export license for the tomato paste project. This was correct because the group was not going to be exporting any product. They only wanted the license because it would give them important tax benefits. But the head of the agency, who is close to the politicians involved, rescinded that decision and the group got the export license anyway.”

Since democracy, the voices of civil society, activists and the media in The Gambia have become louder. Does Darboe see critical mass building up for better governance in the near future? “I wish. But we as media are not receiving financial support to do our jobs. Donor grants are always for specific themes, like ‘write about X, or Y.” It is rarely to hold power to account.”

Swandi Darboe

We dedicate our editorial to this interview because the Kleptocracy Report has found what Darboe says to be true in many African countries: good journalism is simply not sufficiently funded. And to fight kleptocracy, like in The Gambia, this needs to change.

Read the Tomato Paste story here

We produce the Kleptocracy Report with a small team of African investigative journalists. Your support can help us to keep publishing in freedom and open gateways for democratic change. Read more about our work and funding here.

How to colonise in the 21st century

Many carbon credit projects, funded by global polluters to compensate for the damage they do by, for example, planting trees somewhere, often result in damage to communities in the developing world. More than one report has shown that already marginalised people are forced to leave villages or get robbed of land to make space for the trees and other vegetation that come with the “compensation” projects.

NAIRE’s Africa Uncensored uncovered how a ‘Carbon Colony’ in Kenya, while benefiting some local authorities, victimised cattle-farming families. “This is how you colonise a country in the 21st century”, says a Kenyan environmentalist in Africa Uncensored’s documentary. “Before, you came with guns and shot people. Now, you pay their legislators.”

See the Carbon Colony video

The right-wing and the development aid

Dutch right-wing extremist politician Geert Wilders recently said he would rather spend development aid money back in the Netherlands “and then they’ll be a little hungrier in Africa”. The statement was disingenuous in many ways, writes Oyunga Pala for ZAM. First, Pala says, all of the West’s dealings with Africa, be it through aid, trade or any other intervention, “achieve the same neo-colonial outcome: they keep Africa structurally dependent, either as a charity case or as a source of cheap raw commodities and labour.” In his statement, therefore, Wilders “explicitly admitted the exploitative nature of the global system.”

Geert Wilders

Read Oyunga Pala’s piece here

Donald Trump’s crusade

Likewise, another truth was hidden behind Donald Trump’s -and intriguingly, rap star Nicki Minaj’s- call to “save Christians in Nigeria” from “terrorists.” While, as various analysts have observed, violent conflicts in Nigeria are mostly to do with resources such as land, plus bad governance generally, the movement to support ‘Christians’ in Africa is driven by US evangelical networks which support the Trump administration. South African author Pontsho Pilane was interviewed by ZAM on the evangelicals’ promotion of hierarchical patriarchy on the African continent, often in cahoots with kleptocrat leaders.

Design by Sky Walker

And while Trump’s crusade against “terrorists” in West Africa has recently extended to the Sahel, see here, Nigerian NAIRE member Beloved John explained, for ZAM, the root causes behind the violence in her country.

Read the Nigerian War of Donald Trump

Grandpa kleptocrat

Uganda’s once-again president, Yoweri Museveni, now 81, has morphed from a bush war fighter 40 years ago to a self-designated ‘grandfather’ of the nation, who keeps declaring himself the winner in increasingly fraudulent and violent elections. This is all in the purported interest of his bazzukulu, ‘grandchildren’ as he calls them, who are, he says, only protesting because they are led astray by ‘foreign forces.’ Meanwhile, the Museveni family holds the country’s resources and state coffers in an iron grip, annihilating prospects for economic development and youth employment, causing hundreds of thousands to aspire only to leave. As Ugandans in January 2026 once again witnessed an elections circus during which 2000 protestors were detained, 30 killed and scores disappeared, grandpa kleptocrat declared himself the winner for the 7th time.

In honour of those who keep fighting for a democratic, better, Uganda, we republish two pieces by brave bazzukulu, one from 2024 and one more recently. May they reach the leaders of Western nations who are currently contemplating deals with Museveni that will see, next to his own political prisoners, their unwanted migrants detained in that country, too.

Read ‘Not my Grandfather’ here

Read The Colonial Bogeyman here

See snippets from the last election here

News from the network

• Our colleagues at the Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ) in Malawi have been singularly busy. First, they followed up on anti-corruption efforts in their country, producing a story exposing one of the largest thefts of public resources in its recent history. Read here about the siphoning off of at least 39 billion Kwacha (over US$ 22 million) through fake invoices, inflated contracts, and collusion between senior officials and private contractors, all within four months.
• The same colleagues, in collaboration with Finance Uncovered, found that Malawi’s government was oblivious as ownership of a crucial mining project changed hands in an apparent breach of the law. This allowed Chinese state companies to quietly take over millions of tons of Malawi’s critical minerals. Read about Malawi’s sleepy -or perhaps otherwise busy- government here.
• The PIJ also dissected the penetration of a broken justice and state system by criminal scammers: read the account of its victims here.
• But even if the Malawian colleagues have taken the lead in January, the African arm of the Global Investigative Journalism Network produced plenty courageous investigative work, holding kleptocrats within and abroad to account, in 2025. See the GIJN’s top picks here.

ZAM works with investigative reporters in African countries to bring you this content. Please subscribe, preferably paid, to support and enable more ZAM and NAIRE Kleptocracy Reports.