By Ramatoulie Jawo
The National Assembly Member (NAM) for Serekunda West, Hon. Madi Ceesay, said on Thursday that the Finance and Public Account Committee (FPAC) should have included the unretired imprests in their reports.
“Honorable Speaker, I was thinking that the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) will also be able to capture in their report the unretired imprest that has been sitting in people’s pockets for over 7 years now. I remember in 2017, when we came here, this unretired imprest that is still with people was to the tune of D31 million. But as of the end of April this year, it stood at D21 million.
“I did promise that I was going to call out all the names that are holding on this imprest. But after a second thought, I will not read the entire list, but I will call a few that have the highest amount of imprest. Among them is Dr. Njugo Bah, who is still holding 5 million Dalasis in imprest and is not retired. There is another Ebrima O. Camara, who is also holding 5 million dalasis of unretired imprest and there are some with hundreds and thousands of dalasis some with millions, and so on and so forth,” Hon. Ceesay expressed concern. Hon. Ceesay said that over D20 million Dalasis of taxpayers’ money has been given to people to carry out a function, and it is still in their pockets. He also stated that everyone is aware of the circumstances surrounding imprests.
“You are given imprest, and you go. When you come back, you retire it with the receipt and other things, but if still we have over D20 million in people’s pockets, some of whom are no longer working with the government, this is really terrible, and I think the FPAC report should have captured that, and a resolution also should be attached to it,” Hon. Ceesay said.
Hon. Ceesay made these remarks at the National Assembly during the adjournment debate of the 3rd Ordinary Session of the Sixth Legislature.