By: Binta Jaiteh
The National Assembly’s Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) on Thursday adopted the 2019 and 2021 financial and activity reports of the JanjanburehArea Council with reservations.During the consideration stage of the reports, the chairperson of the committee Alagie S. Darboe said the council last year submitted its audited reports for 2019 and 2020 but due to adverse queries and disclaimersraised by the auditors, the committee asked the council to address the queries and report back.He said that the Janjanbureh Area Council prepared another activity and financial statements but because those reports were not audited, the committee could not adopt unaudited reports.
The Brikama North parliamentarian said that the committee cannot wait for the new reports to be submitted for auditing since “it is long overdue” and has affected them in their report writing, which was previously submitted to the council.
“We could not take a definite stand due to pending reports. As a committee, we could not take a stand on issues surrounding councils due to the pendingreports,” he clarified.
Vice-chairperson of FPAC Alagie Mbow said the reports that Janjanbureh Area Council submitted lackedaudit opinion which, he said, cannot be considered by the committee.
“We cannot deal with this kind of report without audit opinion,” he stressed, noting that Janjanbureh Area Council has a lot of issues even in terms of getting vouchers for audit.
However, the CEO of Janjanbureh Area Council, Samba MK Leigh, told the committee that the management has reviewed and addressed the issues raised by the National Audit Office (NAO) in the new report they prepared.
He said since the previous management did not do a formal handover, the new management deemed it necessary to prepare another activity report and financial statements for 2019 and 2020.
The NAO said a lot of councils appeared before the FPAC with the same issues and the committee had to adopt their reports with reservations.
He informed the committee that it was only the Brikama Area Council that submitted their reports without any audit adverse opinion or disclaimer.
Mr. Leigh said NAO has completed auditing the 2019 and 2020 reports and is now focusing on 2023.
The council submitted its 2022 reports but the 2021 reports were pending.
“Submission of reports should be in sequence and the issue should be addressed before inviting us for another audit. The approach is good otherwise the backlogs will not be cleared,” he observed