By Morro Gaye
Dear Mr. Tambedou,
Please allow me to congratulate you on your new appointment as MD of SSHFC, an institution that has just emerged from the reckless plundering of pensioners’ funds during the time of the former regime and now submerged in a bitter controversy following the refusal of your predecessor to let go. Kindly allow me to also remind you of some important points to note as you try to settle down:
1. Immediately following his appointment in March 2017, Manjang reactivated a payment claim of D1.8 million for Amadou Sanneh, the former Finance Minister who brought him to head the institution. The file for that payment was closed many years ago and had been in the archives of the finance department. Previous MDs had refused to effect payment as the matter was deemed inconclusive and at the same time had exceeded the five years statutory limitation period.
But as soon as Manjang took over office he authorized the payment in full without following due diligence even if it came from the advice of the corporation’s lawyer as they alleged. The lawyer who was supposed to defend the interest of the corporation, Okayed the payment disregarding the refusal of the previous managing directors of the corporation who all turned down the requests to pay Mr. Sanneh. They are now putting the blame on the former head of state which is not true as it defies logic for a president to involve himself in such an operating issue.
2. During the staff sit down strike last year, a number of serious allegations were leveled against Mr. Manjang, The matter was reported to the office of the Ombudsman who did a thorough investigations on all the allegations raised and issued a damning report against him. The report never saw the light of day as then UDP leader Lawyer Darboe who was also the leader of government serving as Vice President at the time and who disingenuously ignored the recommendation by the office of the ombudsman to reprimand Manjang.
Up today no one has access to that report. It has been confirmed that he has paid the D135, 000.00 he stole as perdiem when he never travelled out of the country to earn such a payment. This is a clear acceptance of quilt and criminal action must be taken against him. All the other recommendations touching on his fraudulent activities should be implemented without any further delay. Due process must followed to recover pensioner’s monies.
3. Last year the auditors of Ernest & Young completed the audits of seven SOEs including SSHFC. The audit discovered significant misstatement of financial information due to missing receipts, vouchers, undocumented adjustments and incomplete accounting entries that cannot be traced to support the key numbers in the SSHFC Financial Statements as at December 31, 2017. They also established that there has been no actuarial valuation performed at the SSHFC since December2014. A valuation is overdue at SSHFC, and the auditors recommended in their reports that an independent actuarial valuation be performed as an urgent priority. Please pay heed to this matter seriously.
4. Mr. Mohammed Manjang was running the institution without a properly constituted board of directors during 2017 and 2018. At that time he was taking directives solely from Mr. Amadou Sanneh, the erstwhile minister of finance. The audit highlighted some serious misstatements and wrong classification of transactions, for example numerous travelling costs would be deliberately charged to staff costs to probably shield the per diems payment made to some government officials, and some procurement were not with adequate documentations to justify the purchases. There are more issues of grave concerns highlighted in the report which if carefully reviewed could be useful in countering some of the claims being made exaggerating his achievements.
5. A prudent MD would be very mindful in working with those people brought in by Manjang in very questionable circumstances. The current Administration Director was all over the social media venting anger at those perceived as enemies of the former MD and pouring all sorts of praises in support of him during the standoff with the staff. Many are now seeing her appointment as a quid pro quo for her support to Manjang.
She is not more qualified than those staff she found in the same department who are master’s degrees holders in their relevant specializations and had served diligently the corporation for a very longtime. They were unfairly treated during the recruitment process for the position of director. Likewise the position of DMD awarded to a person without any previous experience in managing public institution like social security looks abnormal. His appointment must also be subject to forensic scrutiny.
The pomposity and arrogance of Manjang has been proven the moment he turned down his appointment by the President as Deputy Executive Secretary to represent the Gambia in the Senegalo-Gambian Permanent Secretariat, a position that became vacant following the demise of Late Mr. Yaya M.B. Jallow of blessed memory. He could have taken a cue from your humbleness when you were removed as MD from GPA and transferred to GPPA the nation’s Procurement Agency. You handled that with profound sense of humility worthy of emulation by any public servant.
I know you will surpass the expectations attached to this esteemed office and join the few eminent personalities who left behind a distinguished legacy in the service of the pensioners in this country and not as the controversially sensationalized exit of the stiff-necked Manjang who walks around with a personal body guard provided and paid for by the state.
You have been chosen to play a crucial role in bringing sanity to this institution as well as to serve the interest of all pensioners in this country. Please also review the National Provident Fund Act 2012 as many people have died forfeiting their genuine claims to the social security because of a stupid clause in the NPF Act which made it impossible to access workers’
contributions without having an uninterrupted contributions of 3 or 5 years, and to serve a ‘cooling off’ period of six months after leaving service. Many of those failing to meet this stringent criteria have either abandon their entitlements or die leaving their claims behind with the social security thus denying their widows/ widowers what is rightfully theirs. These are the people who need urgent help and I am sure you will look into their concerns with the right sense of urgency.
I wish you success.
