By Mama A. Touray
Lamin Fatty, one of the Mansakonko Area Council Revenue collectors has disclosed to the ongoing Local Government Commission of Inquiry (LGCI) that from 2014 to 2022 the revenues he collected were given to the Finance Director of the council and they (revenues) were not banked in the council account.
Giving his testimony on banking the revenues he collected, the witness in his words said “All the revenues I collected within these periods are taken to the council Finance Director and he will issue to me. And I always attached this receipt to my cash book. From 2014 to 2022 I did not deposit any of the revenue I collected to the bank”.
Mr. Fatty added that he started depositing the revenues he collected in 2023 at Trust Bank.
Responding to Deputy Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez’s question of if giving the revenues he collected to the finance director was the right thing to do, but answered that this was the procedure at the council during these periods.
Mr. Fatty, however, presented his cash book to the commission and it was noted that there were no receipts in some of the payments he reacted that “maybe the receipts have fallen off of the book”.
Counsel Gomez said to him that he had ingested (siphoned) those monies and he responded by swearing that he had never eaten (siphoned) any of the council’s revenues.
He informed the commission that there were times when the Chief Executive Officer used to call him to bring the revenue he had collected to the council because they (the council) wanted to buy cash power or fuel.
Also, he was quick to tell the commission that when the money is taken from him, the Finance Director usually gives him a receipt which he reconciles with his cash book, adding that the CEO is his boss and he does what he asked him to do, if it means not banking the revenue collected.
Mr Fatty admitted that as a revenue collector, he knows that revenues collected are to be deposited to the council account.
Counsel told the witness that there is no excuse for saying that the CEO is his boss and he will do what he told him because he knows the rules and the monies are to be deposited to the bank. Also he admitted that there is no excuse.
Testifying on the D2,500 flagged by the audit report, which stated that he, Lamin Fatty, used it to repair his motorcycle, the witness said the money was not handed to him in cash. He explained “I told the CEO that my motorcycle has a problem and he instructed me to take it to one mechanic and asked the mechanic to call him. I did exactly that. I don’t know if the CEO paid the Mechanic or not but my motorcycle was fixed.”
Mr. Lamin Fatty went on to say that he was surprised when he heard that D2,500 was given to him to repair his motorcycle, noting that when the auditors came to the council he told the auditors that he was not aware of D2,500 because he did not pay the money to the Mechanic to repair his motorcycle.
