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| Auditor General Sankareh |
The Gambia government has done payments or
entered into financial transactions without adequate and proper documentations making
it very difficult to certify the transactions are really free of fraud or in
some cases the truthfulness of the transactions, reveals the Auditor Genegal’s
report.
In the report, Auditor General Babucarr
Sankareh, who raised eyebrow about the irregularities of the government’s financial
transactions, said in the process of auditing government accounts, he did not receive
appropriate and sufficient information to confirm the occurrence, accuracy, or even
the existences of some financial transactions.
“The scope of my audit was limited,” Mr
Sankareh said in the audited report he prepared after auditing the financial
statements of The Gambia government for the year ended 31 December
2007.
In the report presented to the National
Assembly in Banjul in October 2012, Mr Sankareh said that during his audit, he
noted that the government purchased vehicles on credit amounting to over D77
million in 2007.
“These were single source procurements
from TK Motors in contravention to the regulations of the Gambia Public Procurement
Authority [GPPA],” he said. “MOFEA
(Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs) was unable to provide documentation
showing any approval from GPPA. Detailed
policies and procedures for the purchase of vehicles were not in place.”
That aside, the Auditor General said
during the year (2007), government made payments amounting to over D33 million
for which he, as the auditor general, was not provided with proper and adequate
supporting documents.
“Payment vouchers for D3,190,388.11 of
these payments were not presented while the balance of D30,195,035.50 had
payment vouchers without adequate supporting documents in contraventions to the
Financial Instructions,” he said.
“In the absence of payment vouchers and
adequate supporting documentation, I was not able to confirm the validity of
the payments,” he added.
Again, Mr Sankareh disclosed that he identified
balances totaling over D38 million as 31 December 2007 held for
government in commercial bank accounts that were not reported.
