By Buba Gagigo
In a resolution passed on Tuesday, October 31, 2023, the Brikama Area Council (BAC) disclosed that, based on a letter from the Ministry of Finance, they have received a total of D33,713,176.01 in geology royalties from the Accountant General’s Office. This revelation contradicts the assertion made by CEO Jonja, who claimed to have received only D21 million. CEO Jonja’s claim was based on payments of D5 million in 2020, D7 million in 2021, and D9.2 million in 2022.
“The Chairman’s Office finally received a letter from the Accountant General’s Office under the Ministry of Finance, which was dated 24th October 2023 and sent to my office, as the Chairman of BAC. However, my office never received such a letter from the Council and managed to get a copy of the same from the Geology Department who were copied onto the letter, but managed to receive their letter on 25th October 2023. This letter confirmed that BAC had received D33,713,176.01 from the central government as payments of the Geology royalties to BAC for the affected wards where mining is happening. However, D3 million of that amount was an overpayment, which we are supposed to return but has since not been returned,” the resolution states.
They continued; “The letter proves that what the CEO had led us to believe in this council that the Geology funds were only D21,000,00.00, which represents the payment of D5 million in 2020, D7 million in 2021, and 9.2million in 2022 were all false and a clear contempt of this council. It is further a deliberate dereliction of his duty to ensure that the management of council remains transparent and accountable.
“These Geology funds are nowhere to be found in our accounts at present and the CEO lied to this council on 12 July 2023, when he said that those funds were invested in the council’s EcoBank Audit Trail account. The alleged audit trail bank account of EcoBank had only D7 million, which is far less than the D33 million claimed by the central government to have been paid into accounts.’The resolution states that the letter proves that the CEO and Director of Finance, Alhagie Jeng, never invested the funds they claimed they did into ECO Bank. Additionally, the resolution states that the evidence provided by the CEO and Mr. Jeng does not clarify the source of the funds.
“In fact the evidence provided from the Access Bank of an overdraft loan facility at that bank proves that the D2 million amount came from our council’s general revenue, instead of the Geology funds, and that loan facility was only created in March 2023. Secondly, it is an abuse of the office of the CEO, to invest council’s funds, as he claimed without any prior authorization of the council and he is not a decision-maker in the council. It is thus, sufficient to conclude that the CEO has overstepped his bounds and further failed in his duty to provide a transparent account of what truly happened to the geology funds,” it states.
Below is the resolution passed by the Brikama Area Council Councilors on Tuesday;
“This is a council resolution, recommending for the immediate removal of the CEO of Brikama Area Council, Mr. Modou Jonga, in line with Section 45 of the Local Government Act 2002, on the grounds of incompetence and abuse of office, as provided in subsection 45(a) and 45(b) of the same act. This resolution is prompted by the willful negligence and dereliction of duties of the CEO, which has cost the Council thousands of its much-needed revenue for the last from its daily market duty collections, which if not curtailed could lead to the collapse of the Council.
“The Market Sub-committee of the council has informed the Office of the Chairman that there was no daily duty collections of all of the markets in the West Coast Region from the 21st October 2023 to the 25 October 2023, due to lack of GTR Tickets. This was a huge loss of the council’s revenue, which council could not afford to lose. Considering the fact that council was struggling to pay the salaries for September 2023 for some of our staff.
“This loss further means that the council would be forced to default on the payment of salaries for this month, October 2023, and potentially for the months of November 2023 and December 2023. Thus there can be no justification for this negligence on the part of the council, as the council should have had a re-ordering level, which once reached; all efforts ought to have been made to ensure that more tickets are printed in advance. However, for council to continue for more than 4 months without GTRS to collect such badly needed revenue was quite simply unacceptable. Furthermore, neither my office, as the head of council, nor the Finance and Audit subcommittee of the council were ever informed of this, prior to the GTRS running out, until they ran out was as I said unacceptable.
“Furthermore, even after being informed of this issue, the CEO was not concerned about this, as the only payment he requested to be approved as at 20 October 2023, a day before the tickets ran out on 21 October 2023, was for the servicing of his official vehicle and others, whilst leaving the issue of the market GTRs unresolved. Thus, it is reasonable to deduct that the CEO has deliberately suppressed our council’s revenue, in order to cripple the council, by simply failing to ensure that council has enough tickets for an uninterrupted collection of market revenue and has also failed to notify the council about the same. It is worth noting that the CEO by virtue of Section 43(3) (b), is responsible for the day-to-day performance of the executive and administrative functions of council and the implementation of all its decisions. By virtue of section 43(3) (c) of the same act he is responsible for the supervision, monitoring, and coordination of the activities of the departments of the Council to ensure accountability and transparency in the management and delivery of the Council’s services. And by virtue of section 43(3) (d) of the same act, he is the accounting officer of the Council.
“As a result, the Finance and Audit subcommittee was instructed by the Chairman’s office to investigate why the market tickets were allowed to run out without any sufficient measures being in place to avert the same. The CEO’s best response or excuse during this engagement with that committee was that he was not aware that the GTRS ran out for almost 4 days, during which the council was not collecting the daily market dues. Such an admission by the CEO proves that he is indeed incompetent to run this council. This is because he is supposed to be responsible for the day-to-day running of the Council and to supervise, monitor, and coordinate the activities of its departments if he could not even know the level of stocks his council has with regards to its revenue collection abilities, then we are indeed doomed as a council. However, during the same period from 19th October 2023 to 25 October 2023, the council was not able to pay any allowances to councilors or make any payments. The excuse for this was that the council ran out of bank chequebooks. This is the case, despite the council having bank accounts with almost all major banks in the country, with 9 accounts.
“Secondly; when the Chairman’s office engaged the GPPC Director, Mr. Momodou Ceesay, in a bit to resolve the council’s lack of stock of the GTRs, he was further disturbed by what that Director disclosed about the state of the BAC’s revenue ticket supply. He explained that BAC had since the 2nd of May 2023 ordered only 5,000 daily market duty receipt booklets, out of which only 2000 booklets were collected from them by BAC with the remaining stock of 3000 with them. He compared that with KMC, which is a region similar to our size, or we are bigger, they make regular orders of 5000 tickets per month and 60,000 booklets a year. This means he was baffled by how BAC could be using GTRS 2000 tickets for almost 5 months. The GPPC director further sent their sample Tickets for BAC, with the serial numbers starting with GPPC, whilst the Chairman has had tickets, which were previously shown to him as the authentic tickets of BAC, from the field during the investigation of Bai Sait Jeng, but in fact the tickets thought to be authentic then, did not have any GPPC serialization. This means that the council had been using GTR tickets, which were not procured from the GPPC. However, all these issues should not have been happening at BAC, if only the CEO had been doing his job properly, supervising and monitoring and coordinating the activities of all of our departments effectively. But due to his failures in effectively executing that duty, has left the Chairman and the council to try to do the same, but even whilst trying to do our best to keep this council going, the CEO has always tried to stymie such efforts, such as refusing to pay councilors allowances and claiming it on lack of checks or that there is a lack of funds in the council’s accounts.
“The CEO further has an unfriendly relationship with many council members, which for some stems from his deliberate and unjustifiable denial of providing them with their Geology funds for years, whilst leaving them, the councilors to be subject of ridiculing by their ward residents, for failing to account for their Geology royalty funds from the council. Others it is his simple denial of paying them their allowance for attending their council committee sittings. He brings in his own rules, without any council blessing, and applies it anyhow he likes.
“The Chairman’s office has received more complaints from councilors about the CEO than any other member of this council. But if all is going well, he should be the one attracting more praise from the council members than anyone else.
“THE JAH OIL LOAN
The CEO further together with the director of finance and former chairman Sheriffo had taken a loan of D2.5 million Dalasi from Jah Oil, which is yet to be fully accounted for. The CEO further acted unlawfully in this transaction together with Alhagie Jeng and former Chairman Sheriffo Sonko to take such a loan outside of their budget line without any council resolution for such a loan and ministerial approval, before taking such a loan which the council now has to pay back.In fact, the CEO, Alhagie Jeng, and former Chairman Sheriffo Sonko told the Jah Oil officials that, the loan was approved by a council resolution and further deliberately wrote on their loan agreement Council Resolution, when the three clearly knew that this was not true. Such a dishonorable act has indeed disqualified our CEO from holding such office in the BAC.
“THE MILLION WITHDRAWALS IN 2023
In addition, the internal Audit has made several requests to the CEO and Director of Finance for justification of withdrawals amounting to D30,000,000.00 between the months of January 2023 to June 2023, but to no avail. This is the case, despite the CEO assuring the council on 21st July 2023 that they have payment vouchers and justifications for all withdrawals made to the BAC. Again this was also a clear case, in which the CEO misled this council, which he could not back by evidence.
“It is worth noting that many council staff could not receive their salary payments last month of September 2023, because of these unjustified withdrawals of our funds. And this month, many of our council members will not be receiving their allowances because of those withdrawals and the fact that the council could not make collection of its daily dues for almost 5 days last week.
“APPOINTMENT OF THE JENG CLAN
The initial investigation into the appointment of the Director of Finance and his extended family to the council’s payroll further proves that, the appointments had either the direct or indirect blessing of the CEO. Furthermore, the festering of such nepotism in the council culture has resulted as a result of the incompetence of the CEO or his abuse of office in endorsing the appointment of certain Jeng family members without proper vetting of the Establishment Committee.
“OTHER IRREGULARITIES
Furthermore, during the recently concluded council budget session, the Finance and Audit committee uncovered many dead people in our council’s payrolls, ghost workers, such as one Abdoulie Jeng, who is still untraceable, etc. Staff being at different grades to their pay grade, for someone whose last letter of appointment has them at grade 5, are paid at grade 8 rate, without corresponding evidence of such promotion in their files.
“This was allowed to fester in this council due to the incompetence and abuse of the office of the CEO, all of which has cost this council so much. It would be surprising to some to note that this council was once paying its salaries on the 23rd of each month, running on a surplus of over D10 million dalasis, consistently under an exemplary leadership in the past. This is still attainable but under the right Chief Executive of the Council who will be willing to work with the council and not working to defeat the same. Based on the above, the Chairman’s office through the Establish Committee brings this motion to council seeking for its recommendation to remove the CEO, Modou Jonga, as the CEO of BAC, with immediate effect.”