Mr Touray stated this yesterday while presenting the Auditor General’s report to the lawmakers at the National Assembly.
He explained: “Our audit reveals several instances of theft of funds through falsification of documents or suppression of revenue. These matters are brought to the attention of the Inspector General of Police for further action. In this report, I have highlighted instances of theft or suppression of revenue with amounts ranging from few hundred to millions of dalasi. These are very serious matters and I urge all public institutions to have in place adequate control to stop such thefts.”
The auditor general said the scope of the problem ranges from public institutions’ failure to comply with government financial instructions, payment without adequate supporting documents among others.
He added: “Failure to comply with government financial instructions is a regular feature of our audit reports. It is the duty of accounting officers to ensure that their staff are conversant with the appropriate parts of the instructions and that they have access to them at all reasonable times. The most serious areas of non-compliance we have indentified include, maintenance of accounting records, procurement of goods and services, the completion of documents to support payments, retirement of imprest, bank reconciliation and the control and accounting for revenue earning documents. We have observed numerous instances of lack of adequate supporting documents to payment vouchers. Where payment vouchers are not supported with adequate documents, it is difficult to verify the accuracy of the payments. It is also very difficult for us to determine to what extent the lack of supporting documentation is an attempt to conceal fraud or misappropriation of funds and to what extent it is just poor record keeping. We have observed several instances where payment vouchers in respect of groups of persons have not been endorsed by the recipients to confirm receipt of payment. Lack of recipient signatures to payment vouchers cast doubt to the authenticity of payments. We have observed many instances where there is no evidence of competitive tendering being used and no approval of single source procurement obtained from Gambia Public Procurement Authority and this has resulted in purchases at inflated process.”
The institutions audited over the past years were the National Drug Enforcement Agency, Government Local Fund(GLF) Component Of The Third Education Project(AFDB), UNESCO Audit, International Development Association(IDA) Support To Third Education Project, Ministry Of Defence (MOD), Gambia Armed Forces, Brikama Magistrates Court, Brikama Sub-Treasury, Chargel Basic Cycle School, Dankunku Health Centre, Sukuta Upper Basic School (CRR), Sulayman Junkung Jammeh General Hospital, National Disaster Management Agency(NDMA), National Development Enterprise Initiative (NEDI), National Sports Council(NSC), Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital (EFTSH), Bansang Hospital, Brikama Health Centre, Kuntaur Area Council, Janjanbureh Area Council, Brikama Area Council, Mansakonko Area Council, Kerewan Area Council, The Gambia Embassy in Guinea Bissau, Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), the Gambia International Airlines (GIA), the Gambia Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Micro Finance Promotion Centre, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Gambia Food And Feed Industries, Sheriff’s Division, Gambia National Lottery and the University of The Gambia.
The report awaits the consideration of the lawmakers who have asked time to go through the bulky document until Monday, 20 April.
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