By Binta Jaiteh
Madam Agnes Macaulay, Accountant General of The Gambia is seeking assistance from the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the National Assembly for the recovery of unretired impress and urged the committee to arbitrate.
Responding to the questions asked by the members, she noted that they have gone up to a stage and decided to seize the salaries of individuals who have outstanding impress and not deducted them from their monthly salaries due to this problem that someone in active service today by the time you completes the recovery he is gone. In that case, the money becomes outstanding and the question comes in as to who will go after that individual,” she asked.
“The law does not provide for you to wipe out the individual’s salary, we are cut in the middle and these are some of the challenges we faced,
“We have institutionalized and put in measures to reduce this kind of situation and limit the amount of impress to be given, we have all that in place to reduce the occurrences of outstanding impress at the level of the government.
“Sometimes is difficult especially for those activities to be done in the rural areas so we depend on the people on the ground to sort this out due to that we encounter a lot of challenges,” she further told the lawmakers.
In her presentation on the report, she outlined that impress that is outstanding amounted to
six hundred and seventy-two thousand one hundred dalasi) and the delays to impress holders who are not in active service thereby cannot be traced amounting to five million nine hundred and forty-one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two dalasi twenty-two bututs are available for retirement, while one million eight hundred and fifty-two thousand and forty-eight dalasi remains outstanding which are not submitted for retirement.
She explained that one impress holder with an amount of fifteen thousand is deceased and one hundred thousand currently is recovered adding that, Demba BT Sambou’s retirement date is supposed to be 31st of December 2016 and the amount is twenty-six thousand nine hundred and fifty.
According to her this amount is still outstanding and the individual is not on the payroll to deduct him from the payroll, Omar Jatta’s retirement date is the 22nd of September 2016 and the amount was twenty-five thousand and it remains outstanding. Baboucarr Sallah’s retirement date is the 31st of December 2017 and the amount was forty-six thousand two hundred and fifty outstanding.
She further said that Omar Darboe’s retirement is 31st of December amount of eighty thousand which is also outstanding while Gibriel Jarju’s retirement date is the 30th of December fifty thousand and the amount outstanding is three thousand dalasi. For this impress documents are available for retirement as for Janjanbureh sub treasury retirement date is 31st of December and the amount was five hundred and fifty thousand and this impress document are available for retirement.
Howeverfor, Masakonko sub treasury’s retirement date is December 30th, 2019 the amount is 3 million, eight hundred and sixty-four thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven dalasi twenty-two bututs the documentation is available for retirement.
For one reason or another other when we checked the system their paying name is not supposed to be Mansakonko sub treasury instead the Gambia Permanent Mission UN.
She said Sainabou Faye’s retirement date is 30th of June 2019 and the amount of the impress is sixty-five thousand eight hundred as of now the sixty-five thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine is outstanding and currently not on the payroll for the deduction.
Roheyatou Lowe’s retirement date was 28 February amount is two hundred and seventeen thousand five hundred dalasi and that amount remains outstanding basically, a document has been submitted but that is not enough on how the money was spent.
She said this is a function that is part of the functions of the accounting or accounts unit in each MDA or institution from our end which is the centre. We coordinate these activities as part of our year-end activity in preparation for government financial statements and from that perspective we come to the consultation where the entire government is looked at as far as the budget is a concerned.
Musa Cham member of the committee said section 75 of the public finance act it states that there shall be financial regulations adding that we are in a situation that prompts the lack of adherence to the act which is causing a problem.
Kebba Lang Fofana also a member of the committee said the accountant general wants the committee to assist them in the way forward he stressed that the law is clear as a committee they will compel the accountant general to contact the Attorney general on the individuals that are not on the payroll for the laws to be enforced for money recovery.