By Mama A. Touray
The Director of Finance at Basse Area Council (BsAC) – LaminSuso admitted during his appearance at the Local Government Commission of Inquiry (LGCI) on Tuesday that the Basse Area Council development budget did not meet the statutory budget of 60% in 2022.
Without mince words, he admitted and explained that the BasseArea Council development budget did not meet the statutory budget of 60% in 2022, due to the recurrent expenditures of the council and the lack of 25% subvention from the government.
When asked by the Chairperson of the LGIC, Jainaba Bah, about where it is written that the 25% should be part of budget allocations, Suso who was allowed to search the law books could not make or trace out any reference regarding that from the law book.
Lead Counsel Yakarr Cox explained to the witness that the Government development budget has to be 60% and that the coming of the 25% is a compliment to support the council.
After that, he asked the witness why the needs of council to pay more on salaries and operations, and do little development for the people.
He responded, “This 60-40% is a challenge to the council but does not mean councils should not exist. We are doing everything possible to meet the requirement”.
Counsel Cox further told Suso “You doubled salary but you did not increase jobs”.
The Commission noted that the development budget of BasseArea Council for 2022 was 17 Million Dalasi, which was 41.5 percent.
The development budget was D17,018,375.68 and the total budget was D40,998,637.05.
The financial statements for 2021 and 2022 were prepared in March 2023. The witness said the reason for failing to prepare the reports on time was because there were issues with the integrated financial management information system (IFMIS).
The Commission noted that in 2021 the approved budget was D12, 086,826 and the actual was over D10 million in September. In 2022, the projected budget was D24 Million.
In 2021, the approved budget for salary was D2, 571,564 but by September 2021 Basse Area Council spent over D2,514,000Million. In 2022, the projected salary was D5.3 million.
“What makes you double the salary, do you have more staff?” Counsel Yakarr Cox asked Mr. Suso who responded “This must be an error”.
With his response, Chairperson Jainaba Bah asked Suso “What is the error?” and Mr. Suso answered, “I will investigate.”
Testifying how the Budget was prepared Suso explained that the process starts from a circular that is sent by the CEO to the councilors and unit heads to submit their priorities for consideration in the budget.
He explained further that the finance and budget sub-committee would meet around September to discuss the budget adding that he was a member of the sub-committee together with the CEO, some councilors, and the budget officer.
He told the commission that ward councilors would be asked to come before the sub-committee to defend their projects, from there the committee would select the projects to be implemented.
