By Tabora Bojang
The National Audit Office NAO’s report on the 2024 financial statement of the government presented to the National Assembly on Friday, quoted the auditor general as saying:
“In my opinion, the financial statements of the Government of The Gambia do not present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the government as at 31 December 2024.”
In the report, the AG repeated instances where financial statements were significantly misstated, or rendered unreliable with millions of public funds unaccounted for.
“I noted sixteen (16) dormant accounts with balances to fourteen (14) accounts amounting to D1,382,544.66 and $9,304.71 held at the Central Bank for over five years remained inactive. However, these accounts remained open, contrary to the regulations,” the AG said.
“I re-performed the year-end bank reconciliations for various accounts maintained by the Accountant General’s Department and noted discrepancies amounting to D75,037,091.37 between the bank and cash balances used for reconciliation and the actual year-end cash and bank balances,” the AG continued.
These discrepancies, the AG noted, have resulted in the inaccurate disclosure of balances in the financial statements.
The report also noted a discrepancy of D1,149,310,991.282 between cash and cash equivalents and the general ledgers of various cash accounts. “The discrepancy indicates that the financial statements are misstated with respect to cash and cash equivalents.
According to the AG, there was also a difference of D4,871,514.00 between the total receipts in the bank statement against the total BTL receipts in the general ledger which suggest misstatement in the recognition of receipts and associated cash inflows.
“I also noted, a discrepancy of D5,018,724,180.00 between the cash balance disclosed in the statement of financial position and the year-end cash balance reported in the statement of cash receipts and payments.” He said this discrepancy indicates inaccuracies in the financial statements related to cash balances and reconciliations.
The AG further reported that he identified discrepancies totaling D3,715,161.66 between the general ledgers and cash books across various government accounts which raises concerns about the accuracy and integrity of the financial records and the reliability of cash-related accounting data.
He also further reported discovering cash accounts with negative balances such as the revenue bank account which has a negative balance of D352,365,097.60 “incorrectly classified as cash and cash equivalents” contributing to an understatement of the cash and cash equivalents balance disclosed in the financial statements.
The audit also found a number of unreconciled cash and bank items amounting D9,455,722,177.20 for receipts and D16,586,981,425.31 for payments that remain uncorrected across multiple periods with no evidence of correction provided to the auditors which they said undermine the effectiveness of the reconciliation process and raised questions about the completeness and accuracy of cash-related disclosures and balance.
