By Binta Jaiteh
The Parliament’s Committee on Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) has been informed that the Gambia College failed to provide payroll reports from January to June 2019.
Nexia Payce Consulting (Chartered Certified Accountants, Registered Auditors & BusinessConsultants) Paul Gaye provided the information to the committee.
Auditors further queried that, the material lapses continued in 2020. Gaye presented the 2019 and 2020 audited Management letter of Gambia College to FPAC, on Thursday 25th April 2024.
The Gambia College Management responded saying that the Gambia College Human Resources Department was relatively new and the issue of payroll reports, monthly reconciliation between payroll report and value of instruction sent to the bank arenormally handled by the financial controller and the internal auditors.
However, the recommendations were noted and would be implemented.
Auditors discovered weak internal controls in the administration of payroll which has the potential of causing material financial losses to any organization. The audit cycles of 2019 and 2020 scrutinized deeply the payments classified under payroll.
He said there is no evidence provided by Gambia College to justify payments of GMD 5, 789,697.38 “Amounts paid out as salaries, not backed by Payroll Reports in March, May and December 2020.”
Therefore, the auditors recommended that with immediate effect, the Governing Council of Gambia College should ensure that the Management and Finance Directorate must provide a monthly headcount report from the Human Resources Department confirming all staff employed by Gambia College should be made available before the payroll is prepared.
For that, he said there should be a review of the draft payroll report by both the Internal Audit and Human Resources Departments to confirm the list of staff about to be remunerated and the monetary package that month for every employee reflects what is stated in their contract of employment.
He urged that monthly reconciliation must take place between the Payroll Report and value of instructions sent to the bank for payment.
However, auditors also quarried of missing payment voucher values not reconciling withsupporting documents that posedmisappropriation of funds, embezzlement and many fraudulent activities are permitted when PVs are not raised or concealed to avoid being reviewed by an audit.
“The additional Payment Vouchers submitted by Gambia College towards the closing stages of the 2019 and 2020 audit cycles, from a previous query failed to provide all the listed documents that were originally requested,” Mr. Gaye stated.