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Momodou
Denmark
11512 Posts |
 Posted - 09 Nov 2019 : 13:26:58
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Special Audit of seven State-Owned Enterprises in The Gambia
Here is the full and final Special Audit of Seven State- Owned Enterprises in The Gambia. The exercise was conducted by a British firm Ernst & Young LLP which submitted this final report to Minister of Finance Mamburey Njie in August 2019. Until today this report has not been made public, not even presented to the National Assembly given its deep and widespread national ramifications.
Meantime the Minister of Information Ebrima Sillah and the Government Spokesperson Ebrima Sankareh all claimed they have never seen this report even thought they are in charge of the Governments communications and information infrastructure at the highest level.
The auditors said the principal focus of this report is to determine the drivers of financial performance and the financial position of the seven SOEs as at 31 December 2017. This is contained in Objective 1 of the exercise as mandated to them by the Gambia Government.
The seven SOEs concerned are:
1. NAWEC
2. GAMTEL
3. GAMCEL
4. SSHFC
5. GPA
6. GNPC
7. GCAA
Essentially the report found massive incidents of corruption through misappropriation, lack of accuracy and transparency as well as the presence of widespread fundamental accounting errors or incorrect accounting treatments. One of the major reasons for the mismanagement in SOEs is the incidence of Executive Directives.
For example the report highlighted that GPA was instructed by the Office of the President (i.e. under Yaya Jammeh) in 2014 to pay approximately USD 300k of freight charges for 26 buses donated by Spain.
Similarly in 2018 the same GPA was again instructed to pay almost USD 100k in 2018 by the Office of the President (i.e. under Adama Barrow) for carpets to be installed at the grand tent at the State House.
Therefore one of the recommendations of the auditors is that the practice of Executive Directives to order SOEs to buy, provide, invest, employ, grant, or loan should stop. Yet the practice continues until today.
I hope citizens and CSOs will take this report to another level!
By Madi Jobarteh
Special Audit of seven State-Owned Enterprises in The Gambia
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Special Audit of Stat-Owned Enterprises
