By Arret Jatta
Foday Danjo, the former chairman of the Basse Area Council yesterday testified at the Local Government Commission of Inquiry via Zoom from his current residence in the United States.
The enquiry queried Danjo over the withdrawal of over D51 million from the council’s account by one Lamin Susso, the finance director during his time as council chairman.
But according to the former chairman, he was not aware of such a withdrawal.
“Millions of dalasis were withdrawn without authority. In fact, more than 51 million dalasis was withdrawn by the people you are supposed to supervise or give clearance to for those withdrawals. So if your excuse is you do not know at the time, that’s not an excuse. The law requires that you have to know,” Counsel Gomez told the witness.
The former chairman agreed that large sums of money were withdrawn, but the monies were used for projects.
He was then questioned about the specific case over D51 million withdrawn by Finance Director Lamin Susso who claimed it was for council purposes.
“I only knew that through this commission, ” Danjo told the enquiry.
“Mr Danjo, you guys as chairmen or mayors were very familiar with the authority you have, but you hide behind the fact that the CEO and the finance director are the ones who sign cheques. But before cheques are signed, so many processes will take place and there is no way those people can sign cheques without you either knowing or having the possibility of knowing after it was signed. So if you were doing your job as chairman, you would have realised that these withdrawals were not duly authorised,” Lead Counsel Gomez told Danjo.
However, Danjo insisted that he was doing his job accordingly. “I hired two internal auditors to audit the council. If I wanted corruption in the council, I would not have done that,” Danjo argued, when Counsel Gomez told him he had failed in his job.
