By Binta Jaiteh
The Alternative Dispute Regulatory Secretariat (ADRS) is still not submit its activity and financial statement for the year ended 2017 and 2018 to the National Audit office for auditing – as its officials said the reports are still with the management.
Appearing before lawmakers, Musa Jallow, an official of the national audit office said: the 2016, 2017 is finalized at the beginning of last year 2020, but 2018 and 2019 has not been submitted for auditing yet and we did not have a team to audit ADRS for now.”
He added: “If accounts are not submitted, it will be difficult to operate as concerned and for this year we slotted them for March and April even though submission is still pending, statements of 2018 and 2019.”
Kumba Jaw, ADRS executive secretary, explained that they appeared last time before the outbreak of covid-19, adding that she made an undertaking that before appearing in August that they will submit the reports for 2018 and 2019, but it could not be fulfilled due to obvious reasons.
‘’Still the financial statement and activity report for 2017, 2018 and 2019 are not yet audited we apologize for the delaying. As of now the reports are fully ready and will be submitted to the National audit’s office as soon as possible,” she told lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Halifa Sallah chairperson to the committee said the secretariat was established to facilitate a process of dispute resolution, the interesting thing about the act is, and it has not created any governing authority for the secretariat. He added that the secretariat is totally independent to carry out its duties the secretariat is carrying two caps including the government and the cap of execution.
‘”This are the lessons we want you to draw in the operations of your activities whether that is the best environment for such as institution. It will be useful for the secretariat to fully understand the mandate of the committee under section (175) subsection (4) states that the committee is establish to promote efficiency probity in all under takings of the public enterprises. Is not the committee that dictates but the constitution,” he said.
However, it has been proposed that the alternative dispute regulatory secretariat submits its activity report and financial statement for the year ended 31st December 2018, 2019 by 30th June 2021. Therefore the meeting was adjourned after consultation from the auditor general’s office.
