By Arret Jatta
The Public Enterprise Committee of the National Assembly has detected some inconsistency in the approval process of grant to the Gambia National Petroleum Company(GNPC).
“During the year under review, an amount of D51 million and D21.4 million was recognisedas Grant Income and Upstream Revenue from the Upstream fund but auditors have detected inconsistency in the approval process of the said amounts. It was also detected that the approval of D21.4 million came from the Ministry of Petroleum and D51 million was approved via the Board resolution” the report stated.
Lamin L. Sanneh, the chairperson of the committee said during their discussion with the management on the utilisation of Upstream Funds, a request for an approve policy to determine the utilisation of the fund and the basis of revenue allocation but it was confirmed that an approved policy was not maintained by the company.
“Considering the amount of funds involved in the Upstream Fund Revenue, lack of a well-documented policy exposes management to a risk of inconsistency. It could further lead to poor management of the funds considering the MOPE and the affected government ministries have approved budgets on a yearly basis,” he said.
The committee however recommended that the ministry of finance and the line ministry work together in order to determine the sharing mechanisms for the Upstream Funds between the company and the government.
“Following determination of government shares, arrangement should be made by the Ministry of Petroleum and the Accountant General for the immediate transfer of all Government revenue to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) as dictated by the Constitution”, the committee recommended.
