By Binta Jaiteh
Public Utility and Regulatory Authority (PURA) has finally submitted its annual report of the year ended 31st December 2019, financial statement and activity report to Public enterprise committee after its failure to meet the committee’s requirements during last appearance.
Speaking during the session, Halifa Sallah, chairperson of the committee said: “we have assembled here after a contract was put in place based on the desire, to fulfill the constitutional mandate of both the committee and PURA. We, as a committee are conscious of the fact that Public utilities constitute the foundation for both development of the country and the enhancement of living standard of the people.”
“It is by constitutional provision, duty of the committee to consider PURA as a public enterprise because the definition extends to any institution owned or control by the government. PURA is a very important institution with tremendous powers to regulate and set standard and monitor those standards but to look at license, to make sure that what is provided to not only of quality, not only accessible but would be available at all times,” he said.
He added after the presentation by PURA that members did observed the consolidated form of the report, where the activity report and financial statement are all integrated in one document while he proposed and have the sitting adjourned for Thursday for consideration stage by PEC.
Mr Ngom chairperson of PURA said they made an undertaken to submit the annual financial statement and activity report 2019, and without much ado, they presented the report of the 2019.
He noted that PURA has always been guided by the act that regulates, empowers it to regulate service providers, and PURA made it clear, that if action is taken against a service the actions are guided by law and if the parties are at grieve, they can still resolve back to that law for redress.
Momodou Jallow, DG of PURA commended the committee for granting their wish for second appearance and has the confidence in them.
Ebrima Jadama, external auditor explained that they believe that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide bases for opinion “the responsibilities of the management and those charged with governance for the financial statement, management is responsible for preparing finance statement that give fair and true that is accepted generally.”