By Mama A. Touray
The Brikama Area Council’s (BAC) principal internal auditor, Sulayman Barry, has informed the Local Government Commission that revenue collectors suppressed D864,500 of council funds in 2023.
The audit report recommended the management of BAC to take steps to recover the said sum, however, Barry said there is still no evidence of the recovery of the said sum.
When asked if the collectors were informed about this, Barry said: “All of them were informed about the revenue suppression and they know about it”.
Continuing his testimony at the commission, he further cited transactions the council made that flouted procurement rules.
“There were no purchase orders, no approval of the CEO and the Director of Finance, no vouchers, and they did not pass through the Internal Audit for pre-auditing before making the payments.
“One of the transactions was a D92,915 payment made to GNPC. In that transaction, the CEO did not approve the invoice, the purchase order was not signed by the Director of Finance and many other irregularities,” he explained.
When asked how that happened, the witness said the Director of Finance would be in a better position to explain that.
According to the audit report, BAC made another transaction on 14th April 2022 where they bought office furniture worth D75,000. However, the witness testified that this transaction did not follow due process. They noted that the only documentation available in the file for the purchase of the furniture was an incomplete voucher.
“Failure to adhere to the rules is a very serious violation. It increases the risk of inflating the price [of goods]. Also, if you buy from one supplier you might not get the best market price. Also, buying from one supplier might mean the person has a favourite supplier to get kickbacks,” he said.
On the D499,500 spent on disaster relief in 2022 by the council, Barry explained that there was no quotation and documents, and the management of the Council has still not responded to the audit finding and further mentioned some of the transactions in which payments were made without supporting documents.
Another revelation in the audit report for the first quarter of 2022 was that there were duplicated, or double payments made for single transactions. Barry testified that those payments were made without payment receipts.
He gave a list of some of those transactions and informed the Commission that it could be more than that.
The report further revealed that BAC made a payment of D82,167.52 on March 28th, 2022. However, on March 30th, 2022, the Council paid D65,734 for the same transaction. The report pointed out that the invoice for the first transaction was photocopied and used to make payment for the second transaction.
Again, when asked who approved the second transaction, Barry responded that the Director of Finance should be in a better position to answer that question.
