By Arret Jatta
The former Chief Executive Officer of the Brikama Area Council Modou Jonga, yesterday testified at the Local Government Commission of Enquiry alongside his former chairman Sheriffo Sonko, with both admitting that they did not follow the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) governing the expenditure of the D30 million from the geology fund.
Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez began the probe by asking CEO Jonga to confirm payments received from the Accountant General for the geology fund, and in reply, Jonga confirmed seven transactions, totaling D30 million, but said he could not confirm a payment made on June 12, 2023, as it was not in the statements.
“Just tell us what you have,” Gomez told the witness who then listed the payments he could confirm, including D7,888,198 received on May 22, 2020, and D4,745,039.40 received on January 24, 2021.
When asked about the breakdown of the expenditure, Jonga tendered vouchers that showed how the additional payments were made from the D30 million. He was later asked about a letter from the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) which was about a retirement of D500,000 support to 7th July windstorm victims.
Lead Counsel asked Mr Jonga what has that got do with the geology fund.
“If you could recall, I did talk about the additional payments that I made from the funds. These are additional payments that were made, so if you see the list, you will see the D500,000 that was paid through NDMA to the windstorm victims,” Jonga responded.
The former chairman, Sheriffo Sonko, was also questioned about his role in overseeing the expenditure.
Sonko claimed that he supervised the actions of CEO Jonga but did not check the expenditures.
“Where were you when Mr Jonga was spending the geology fund without following the MOU?” Gomez asked.
“I believe I supervised the actions of Mr Jonga,” Sonko replied.
“How come Mr Jonga could authorise all these withdrawals, and just a chunk of this amount was paid in the manner it was supposed to be paid,” Gomez pressed on.
Sonko claimed that as CEO, Jonga was responsible for the day-to-day financial transactions of the council.
Gomez put it to him that he as chairman should know, and that the CEO should report to him.
Sonko replied: “No, I did not say he shouldn’t report to me, but I did not check”.
Meanwhile CEO Jonga was later recalled and asked why he deviated from the MOU in the expenditure of the geology fund.
“Your chaiman, Mr Sonko told the commission that the council used the geology fund to support the windstorm victims which was not in line with the MoU for the geology fund,” Lead Counsel Gomez told Jonga
“Yes, we deviated substantially from that,” Jonga admitted.
When asked why he did that, Jonga replied: “Like I said on Thursday, our intention at the time was wrong. We knew that was not the right thing to do. We did not have authorised payments from funds that are not for the communities that are directly affected by mining operations,” Jonga added. Lead Counsel reminded Jonga that the Commission is yet to ascertained the remaining payments directly from these funds.
“We have to wait for the vouchers to come so that we can look at the dates the monies were in the accounts that you were withdrawing, and these monies were not mixed up with other revenue lines,” Gomez told Jonga.
