Senegalese President Macky Sall’s younger brother, Aliou Sall, on Monday, resigned as head of a state-run savings deposit after his name appeared in a BBC report with allegations of fraud relating to natural gas contracts, reported Reuters.
The BBC report in question published earlier this month alleged that Agritrans, a company run by Sall’s younger brother Aliou Sall, received a secret payment of $250,000 in 2014 from an Australian-Romanian businessman, Frank Timis, whose company, Timis Corporation, that year secured licenses to two major offshore gas blocks. As per the report, London-based BP in 2017 agreed to pay Timis Corp $250 million for a stake in the licenses, plus about $10 billion in royalty payments over the coming decades.
The president’s brother had denied all the allegations warning he would file suit against the BBC. He denied that he received a payment from Timis. BP has also rejected the report saying that the royalty payments are nowhere close to $10 billion and that it carried out ample due diligence before signing the deal.
On Monday, Aliou Sall said he was stepping down as head of the Caisse des Depots et Consignations or CDC fund, a body linked to the national treasury, that he has directed since September 2017. He had already stepped down in October 2016 from his post in the Timis group after facing criticism of a possible conflict of interest.
“I hereby notify you of my decision to step down,” Aliou Sall said. “This unfortunate controversy is based only on untruths.”
In a statement, he said the allegations were part of a campaign to dehumanize him and make him public enemy number one.
President Sall has also called the accusations an attempt to destabilize a country trying to make the most of its natural resources.
