By Mama A. Touray
The ex-Chief Executive Officer of Basse Area Council, OusmanTouray Tuesday 31st October testified that it was wrong for the former chairman of Basse Area Council, Foday Danjo to attend contracts committee meetings arguing, he cannot be “the judge and the jury” at the same time.
Touray said this while reacting to the 2020 and 2021 Compliance Review Report presented to the commission probing into area council and municipality.
“It was wrong for the Chairman to attend the Contracts Committee. You cannot be the judge and the jury. He (the Chairman Foday Danjo) should have only supervised us and therefore, he should not have attended the meetings,” he remarked.
When asked about the composition of the contracts committee, he responded that the contracts committee consisted of; himself as the former CEO, former Finance Director, Procurement Officer, the Planner and Engineer, and Councilor SaineyKanuteh.
At that stage, Counsel Gomez put to him that the Chairman used to influence some of the decisions of the Contracts Committee and the witness admitted saying- “The Chairman used to influence some of our decisions”.
Former CEO Touray also admitted that some of the things that the council was doing were wrong as he admitted that the asset register of the Basse Area Council was incomplete and that the lack of complete asset register posed high risk as the council could not account for some things.
He also told the commission that there were no IT Policy, no training policy, no procurement plan and no data base for procurement activities among other things. Adding – “It was due to poor recording system”.
Furthermore, Touray said the former Director of Finance LaminSuso was directly answerable to him and was obliged to follow his instructions, but when deputy lead counsel Patrick Gomez asked him if he ensured that the Director of Finance performed his responsibilities, Touray replied, “I tried my best”.
Counsel Gomez then cited the issue of lack of bank reconciliation, which according to the auditors would affect the credibility of any financial report because of the high risk of errors due to lack of bank reconciliation.
Touray said there was no excuse for not preparing bank reconciliation and Counsel Gomez told him, “Not even one month have you requested for bank reconciliation to be done,” he admitted.
“Since you were employed by the Basse Area Council you did not do your job. You were not doing your job. You were only receiving salary,” Gomez put it to the witness.
Touray however insisted that he did his best while Gomez replied “Your best was never enough.”