By Omar Bah
The National Assembly’s Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) has reported discrepancies in IEC’s annual Activity Report and audited Financial Statements for the years ended 2017, 2018 and 2019. According to FPAC, the Independent Electoral Commission needs to provide detailed breakdown of the D595,000 from nomination fees and revenue generated from registration and replacement of voters card, within 30 days.
“The list of individuals that paid for voters’ card replacement was not provided for reconciliation with the total of D675,141 recorded as other income, neither were the copies of receipts issued to individuals upon payment for replacement cards,” FPAC said.
It also asked the IEC to provide a detailed breakdown of the D2,724,951 interest received on loans within 30 days from the adoption of its report.
“The IEC also needs to provide the FPAC with a copy of the Contract Letter or Electoral Service Code, which was last reviewed in 2018. Furthermore, Election House must provide FPAC with copies of the Appointment Letters of all its Commissioners with evidence of the drawbacks paid to them, within 30 days from the adoption of this report,” the committee said.
Procurement of air tickets
According to FPAC, in October 2019, the IEC spent D200,391 on air tickets with Citi Travel Agency but there was no evidence of sourcing quotations from other suppliers.
The Committee recommended that all payments must be backed by a proper invoice, not just the Proforma Invoice and that the IEC Management should ensure full compliance with GPPA rules, especially regarding single sourcing.
The Committee added that an amount of D40,963.00 was noted sitting in a suspended account on the balance sheet with no supporting documents provided to ascertain the posting in the ledger.
