(Photo: BAC)
By Ramatoulie Jawo
National Assembly Finance and Public Accounts (FPAC) considered and adopted the audited financial statements, final management letter, activity reports for 2020-2021, as well as the Gambia Public Procurement Authority compliance review report 2020 of Brikama Area Council (BAC).
Prior to the adoption and consideration on Monday, the committee spotted that the council has some deposit slips unpresented for their scrutiny.
Hon. Musa Cham, National Assembly member for Sere Kunda sought an explanation from the BAC management of the council about the unpresented deposit slips.
In his response, the CEO of the Council, Modou Jonga said the deposit slips are supposed to be 11; but only 9 collectors were able to present their slips to the management and that two collectors who did not present their deposit slips, one of whom is out of the town.
Hon. Fatoumatta Tuma Njia, Member of Parliament for Banjul South reminded the CEO that the deposit slips are public documents and should not be kept by the collectors for accountability and transparency purposes.
“And I think saying the collector is out of the town is not a good reason for not presenting the deposit slips,” Member of Parliament for Banjul South responded to the excuse advanced by CEO Jonga.
Further justifying, the CEO of the Council, Modou Jonga said: “In 2020 all rate collectors were submitting to the principal cashier which is evidenced by the GDR number that is quoted in page 78 and 79 respectively. It was only in 2021 when the collectors started using the Bank to bring the deposit slips to the principal cashier, we started encountering things like this.”
Bakary Trawally, National Audit Office (NAO) said the records should speak for themselves and that even if an individual is not around.
“As auditors, we keep on emphasizing this any time we visit the councils that we are not here to audit the CEO or the director; but we are here to audit the finance of the institution,” he said.
He said what they believe as auditors is that record keeping should be in a way that even if the external person comes, she or he could conduct the review independently without having much difficulties.