By Arret Jatta
The managing director of The Gambia Printing Publishing Corporation (GPPC), Momodou Ceesay, yesterday refuted claims that his institution has not been audited since 2021, among other allegations.
He was responding to questions from journalists at the regular Ministry of Information press conference at SDKCC, weeks after new GPPC board chairman Alieu Faal called for a special audit.
Faal also made serious allegations relating to financial ‘mismanagement’ that he said can be validated by any auditing.
The State-owned Enterprise Commission expressed concern over the allegations and it is said to be willing to conduct an audit.
However, MD Ceesay told journalists yesterday that the GPPC is one of the institutions in the country with regularly audited accounts.
“The National Assembly can attest to this. Our current audit, 2021, has already been done and sent to the National Assembly while the 2022 audit is currently on. We sent our financial statements to our auditors since March 2024, and they are also auditing the 2023 assets simultaneously. So, it is not accurate to say that GPPC has not been audited for three years,” he argued
Asked to comment on the issue of the D50 million bioclimatic exercise book printing machine, the price of which was alleged to have been inflated by his management, and which is reportedly not new and not working well, Ceesay said the procurement of the machine followed all due process and the machine is functioning, and printing exercise books for schools.
“In fact, before the procurement process went to the GPPA for approval, the board of directors and the management did a position paper. The board of directors even travelled to Holland to inspect this machine prior to its coming,” he said.
He said only people with “personal vendetta” against the institution, are peddling those allegations and management would not succumb to those people who are not looking at the interest of the institution,
