By Binta Jaiteh
Final Draft Report of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) on the Covid-19 phase 1 audit report revealed that payments amounting to GMD116 million were made to suppliers by the contracts committee using a single source procurement method, without obtaining approval from the Gambia Public Procurement Authority GPPA.
The committee described this lack of control weaknesses as non-compliance with financial and procurement regulations and a lack of transparency in the award of contracts
Presenting the report, Allagie Mbow, Vice Chairperson of the Committee said the single source procurement method should only be used in exceptional circumstances and can only be done after seeking formal approval from the GPPA.
He stressed that there was a violation of the procurement regulations, noting that the relevant GPPA approvals must be sought for all single-source procurements.
The FPAC also informed the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) that the section they are quoting applies to funds within their control and not the Covid-19 funds and as such, they must consult with the GPPA for all single-source procurements.
According to him, the FPAC further recommends an amendment of the GPPA Act to incorporate emergency procurement or to incorporate it in the GPPA Bill of 2021 that is under consideration.
He stated that the audit report queried that payment vouchers amounting to GMD64 million were not presented for verification and all payment vouchers for procurements conducted by the committee were not supported with suppliers’ receipts.
“Additionally, payment vouchers amounting to GMD365 million were not stamped by the Accountant General’s Department (AGD) to confirm that payments were done appropriately.
“No payment should have been processed without the required documentation as dictated by the Financial Regulation, 2016, furthermore the Accountant General’s Department had access to the said Payment Vouchers but was not represented in the procurement committee and was not privy to this audit query, “he pointed out.
He stressed that whoever is responsible must present the affected Payment Vouchers (PV) to auditors for review and verification.
“The party that authorised the PVs for AGD must be established for further questioning. Unrepresented bidding documents for contracts were awarded using the open tender process during the procurement of the food items.
However, suppliers’ bidding documents and some contract documents were not presented to the auditors for review. It would be impossible to check whether the award of those contracts is fair and transparent without the bidding documents,” he noted.
“Based on Section 43 (2) of the GPPA Act, the committee used Requests For Quotation (RFQ) as an alternative to normal bidding. Those quotations were said to be available for presentation to auditors. However, the other unresolved queries were referred by the Ministry of Trade to other agencies like NDMA since it could not speak for them. He added
The contracts committee must provide the bidding documents for review by the auditors; that is the only way to ascertain the criteria for identification,” he said.