By Tabora Bojang
Former Brikama Area Council CEO Modou Jonga has admitted that some 120 transactions were single sourced at the BAC in 2020.
Now posted at the Banjul City Council, CEO Jonga was continuing his marathon testimony before the Local Government Commission yesterday.
The CEO was logged in a long argument with commission lead counsel Patrick Gomez on GPPA’s 2020 compliance review report which surprisingly awarded an impressive 86 percent score to the council.
Counsel Gomez, who believes this score is not a true reflection of the situation, argued that there is evidence before the commission in which GPPA officials themselves accepted compromising standards on procurement.
He asked CEO Jonga if he believes the 86 percent score is a fair assessment given that there was no procurement plan at the council in addition to not conducting a market survey before doing procurements. Mr Jonga replied that although there was no procurement plan and non-conduction of a market survey, “there have been improvements in other areas of procurement” within the council.
“So as far as I am concerned, I think this is a fair score,” Jonga stated.
But Counsel Gomez countered that the fact that the GPPA admitted having compromised its own standards, its assessment may not be justified, to which Jonga replied: “Until this day, I consider this score to have been a reflection of the true state of compliance.”
Counsel Gomez asked: “If you are reviewing a procurement organisation that does not have a market survey and a procurement plan, would you give them 86 percent?”. CEO Jonga replied that he is not a procurement expert.
“But you are heading a procurement institution?,” Lead Counsel Gomez charged. “Yes, you can be a CEO but that does not mean you have to be an expert in everything,” Jonga replied.
In response Lawyer Gomez put to him that one does not need to be an expert to determine whether basic requirements such as procurement plan and a market survey analysis ought to be in place to ensure transparency and value for money,
“Yes, that is basic knowledge” the witness stated.
“But you led an organisation where you compromised those two requirements,” Gomez quizzed. Jonga responded: “Yes, but not deliberately.”
“So, do you agree with the 86 percent compliance score?” the lead counsel further asked. “Yes, that was from an organisation [GPPA].”
According to the lead counsel, the BAC in 2020 conducted 173 transactions, out of which 120 have been single sourced without any competitive bidding processes.
Counsel Gomez further asked Mr Jonga to indicate how fair and transparent these single sourced transactions have been, and the CEO said: “All this single source were approved.”
Jonga however disclosed that there has been one transaction which was conducted through an open tender, revealing that tendering depends on the threshold of the transaction.
“There are thresholds for these procurement methods and you don’t expect an organisation to conduct a tender for an item that does not meet the threshold,” Jonga explained,
He however admitted that the absence of a competitive process in procurement compromises value for money and accountability mechanisms.
The Commission’s chairperson Jainaba Bah also intervened saying she has gone through Council’s capital and general expenses and most of the transactions she saw including a D3.9 million hiring of vehicles, software cost of over D576, 000 and digging of a shock-away for over D500,000 are “way beyond the ceiling of tender and single sourcing.” “Don’t you think these transactions should have gone through tender?” Bah asked.
“Yes, they should have been competitive instead of single source,” Jonga admitted.
