The National Assembly Select Committee on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Public Enterprises Committee (PEC) and the Gambia Police Force have failed in their duties to implement National Audit Office (NAO) recommendations of the Audit Report over the years, according to senior audit official
Karamba Touray, Auditor General National Audit Office (NAO) also allegedly accused the office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) for failing to prosecute all reported cases submitted to the police by his office.
G Touray made this disclosure recently while responding to journalists and civil society’s officials at the launching of the National Audit Report at a local hotel in Senegambia.
According to him, the mandate of his office is to present its annual reports to the aforementioned National Assembly Select Committees and where necessary to the Police who are mandated to prosecute all those found wanting in its report, adding that NAO is still lacking the powers to do prosecutions on their own and as of now can only report.
AG Touray pointed out that as matters stand both the National Assembly Select Committees and the Police are not helping, revealing that since 2014, all cases reported to the police have not been successful.
“What NAO as an institution can do is to report the matter to the Police who have the powers of prosecuting anyone found wanting in our reports.
However, it will be interesting to note that most of the cases related to Audit Reports that were shared with the Police since 2014, end up unsuccessful,” AG Karamba Touray frustratingly disclosed.
According to him, the frustrating situation of the NA not acting on key recommendations of the Audit Report as well as the failure of the Police to make any prosecution led to the decision of NAO to cement its partnership with the Civil Society Organisations, Academia and the Media, observing that these bodies can play a pivotal role in exerting pressure on the Chief Auditors (National Assembly PAC and PEC Committees) who are mandated to deal with their report and act on its recommendations.
He stressed that the failure of the National Assembly Select Committees for not acting on the recommendations of the Audit Report is not helpful to the country as it will give room to corrupt officials to take things for granted, recalling that former President Yahya Jammeh used to formed a taskforce committee to look into the recommendations, a process that do help in addressing the issues.
He called on the Civil Society Organisations, Academia and the media to help in exerting pressure on the government for implementation of the recommendations of the Audit Report.
He observed that these stakeholders are key advocators who can push both the NA and the government to act on the recommendations of the Audit Report to be implemented, adding that the collaboration will also avail the contents of the Audit Report to be exposed to the public.
AG Touray pointed out that most corrupt practices are done in secret and once these secret activities are exposed many culprits will have a second thought not to engage in such practices.
He noted that NAO is not relenting on working closely with the National Assembly PAC/PEC in a bid to strengthen efforts to implement the Audit Report so that there will be no waste of time in sanctioning those found wanting.
Also responding, Ancha Taal from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs emphasised that set-aside procurement guidelines should not be compromised at any time, observing that Gambia is very good in drafting good laws but bad at implementing them and the lack of penalties for non-compliance is seriously affecting the country.
According to her, there is a need to go back to the drawing board and bring in the accountants, the permanent secretaries, project coordinators, directors and the lawmakers and remind them that these rules were drafted by themselves.
Madam Taal stated that these are the very people who draw these laws, goes to the people and the parliament for its consideration, observing that it will be important to bring the accounting officers and remind them too on the importance of these laws.
She also cited the challenges of disbursement of funds to the impact and how disbursement is also done with compliance to get the satisfaction of the donors, urging both internal and external auditors to go back to the drawing board and engaged those officials doing procurement and orient them on the rules and regulations of procurements.
She said many times there is a general belief that all procurement officers know the rules and regulations, arguing that this is not always the case and the need to go back to the drawing board becomes necessary.