By Landing Colley
The Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) has recently presented its audit report of 2019 before the National Assembly Public Enterprise Committee.
The report was however tabled before lawmakers by the Augustus Prom Audit Firm.
Augustus Prom Jr told lawmakers: “we conducted our auditing according to international standard and we believe the audit evident conducted is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basic for our opinion. The audit finding which is stated in the management letter are categorize in to a system grading to enable the management to prioritize the implementation of emanating from the audit finding during the audit exercise.”
He added that certain observation was noted during their review, under Human Resource Management aspect of the cooperation and among them is statutory payment which was paid lately to Social Security and Housing Finance Cooperation and the Gambia Revenue Authority for income tax in 2019.
According to him, upon their review on staff annual live, it was noticed that GRTS staff served for 24 months without an annual leave which is incompliance with GRTS service rule as section 8 sub-section 0706 stated that no employee may serve for a continue period of more than 24 months without leave.
He said during their review, it was noticed that GRTS signed an agreement with Africell to provide advertisement service worth of D6.6, 480, 600. This amount was exchanged with 390 mobile phones and another internet connection which is provided by Africell.
He added that the investigation carried out to ascertain whether GRTS employees are using the phone concluded that 83 employees did not provide any reason why the possession of the phone while 10 confirmed that the phone is not with them. He added that six of it were damaged which should be replaced in line with the contract with Africell but was not done.
He said they recommended that the institution (GRTS) on the payroll and statutory to be paid on time in order to ensure full compliance with tax and law of the Gambia and also to minimize the financial lost.
“The management should ensure that there is full compliance with GRTS approved service rules relating to staffs going for leave annually. Management should further look forward to utilization of Africell arrangement to ensure that the cooperation gain from the plan benefit,” he said.
Meanwhile, he reported that the donation of TV equipment from Qatar to the management of GRTS worth of $200,000 was not recorded in the financial statement of GRTS, adding that the management should ensure that the board approve none recognition of the donation.