The Banjul offices of a Belgian firm contracted to print Gambian national identity documents have been ordered to shut down over unpaid taxes, local sources indicated on Monday.
SEMLEX which in 2018 won the contract to produce biometric ID cards for Gambians, has been allegedly told to temporarily close shop reportedly by The Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) over tax issues.
The GRA has not commented publicly to verify the reports.
The five-year contract entitles SEMLEX to 60 percent of the revenue from the production of Gambian IDs while The Gambia government will be apportioned 40 percent.
Controversially awarding the contract to the Belgian company by the government kicked up a storm after its main Gambian rival firm Pristine Consulting was apparently overlooked for the job of printing the country’s national ID cards until 2023.
The new government of The Gambia had apparently dreaded the legal consquences of walking away from an earlier contract which its predecessor under Yahya Jammeh had signed with SEMLEX years before.
WN/as/APA