By Buba Gagigo
Yankuba Darboe, Chairman of Brikama Area Council (BAC), has accused BAC Chief Executive Officer Modou Jonga and Finance Director Jeng of providing him with fake financial statements from Reliance Financial Institution and Supersonic Financial Institution covering the period January 2023 to September 2023.
According to Chairman Darboe, the CEO and Finance Director had been submitting financial statements to his office in accordance with a Council Resolution passed on June 22, 2023. However, Darboe claims that the bank statements turned out to be counterfeit. It wasn’t until the council passed resolutions on October 10, 2023, concerning Jeng, and on October 31, 2023, concerning Jonga, that the financial institutions approached them, revealing that the presented bank statements were fake and forged.
“The CEO Jonga and Director of Finance Jeng were providing my office with financial statements from Reliance Financial Institution and Supersonic Financial Institution from January 2023 to September 2023. This was in line with Council Resolution of 22nd June 2023. However, to my surprise, the account statements provided by the CEO and DF from those financial institutions were fake, until when we passed our resolutions of 10th October 2023 on Jeng and 31st October 2023 on Jonga, those institutions approached us to disclose that the bank statements presented to us were fake and forged by them,” the chairman said.
Darboe explained that the motive behind providing him with false bank statements was linked to Jonga and Jeng obtaining loans totaling D5,716,492 from both institutions for a one-time payment to staff in June 2023, a transaction carried out without the Council’s approval.
“They took D2,858,246.00 from each of those institutions, equalling to D5,716,492. This was done without council’s consent and more than the amount that should be required for such payment. As our monthly salary payment is not more than D2.6 million. So why did they take twice that amount still remains a mystery! But what was unearthed by the authentic statement from Reliance is that the loan amount was credited into our council’s reliance account on 13th June 2023 and the very next day of 14th June 2023, the funds were withdrawn by Jonga and Jeng,” he said.
Darboe revealed that evidence of these irregularities has been forwarded to the Local Government Service Commission, and the public will be informed accordingly. He emphasized, “When we said CEO Jonga cannot sign for accounts, we have ample reasons for it.”