By Makutu Manneh
Edrissa Manneh, a senior revenue collector responsible for supervising and monitoring junior revenue collectors at Janjanbureh Area Council (JAC), has told the Local Government Commission of Inquiry that the finance director of the aforesaid Council used to instruct them to disburse all the monies collected, without banking it.
Mr. Manneh, who is also responsible for recording all data regarding collected revenue in the IFMIS system, said the monies are spent on cash power purchases and other needs of Council.
When informed that the law provided that all revenue collected should be deposited at the bank before use, Manneh said: “This is how we operate at the Council.”
He admitted before Commissioners that the finance director used to instruct him to call Karo Jobarteh, to spend the revenue she collected before banking it.
“The finance director used to give instructions to call her and avail us the money she collected,” he said.
The witness said Ms. Jobarteh is the only revenue collector that the Director of Finance normally asked him to call.
However, Counsel Patrick Gomez informed him that another revenue collector named Fatou has mentioned that he used to call her too, to make payments from the money she collected. He admitted saying this was also an instruction from the director of finance.
Counsel Gomez again asked the witness why he wanted to mislead everyone by saying Karo Jobarteh was the only one he used to call. In his response, the witness said it was an error. Commissioners also observed that witness Manneh has been collecting money and was not depositing them at the bank for several months.
“If you see I did not deposit the monies collected, know that the office requested the money from me,” he said.
On the reason why revenue collectors kept monies with them for weeks before depositing it at the bank, Manneh said this is because the collectors reside far from the banks and financial institutions where money can be saved, and that they only deposit the monies when the amount was huge.
Witness Manneh was also informed that he deposited Two Hundred Thousand Dalasi (D200, 000) at the Council’s GT Bank account in June 2021, and withdrew Fifty-Six Thousand, Two Hundred and Fifty-Five Dalasi from the same bank. However, he could not give an answer on the source of this money when asked, but said he was sent by the director of finance to withdraw the money for petty cash expenses. He said he has also withdrawn Three Hundred Thousand Dalasi (D300, 000) on 21 June 2021, which he gave to the director of finance, Alagie Manneh.
On the Fourteen Thousand and Fifteen Dalasi (D14, 015) worth of unaccounted revenue in 2019 which the auditors said was collected but not recorded in the cash book neither banked, the witness said this statement was an oversight by the auditors. He said he informed the CEO that he has proofs to show that the money was accounted for. He added that the money was recorded in the cash book, and was eventually asked by Commissioners to bring his cash book for them to check.
Witness Manneh was also confronted with the withdrawals from the Council’s GT bank account on 30 November 2020, Forty-Nine Thousand; One Hundred and Seventy One Dalasi (D49, 171) in June 2021; Sixty Six Thousand, Two Hundred and Eighty Nine Dalasi (D66, 289); on 22nd September 2021, One Million Dalasi; on 26th April 2018, One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dalasi (D150, 000) and One Hundred and Nine Thousand, Six Hundred and Twenty-five Dalasi, Twenty-five butut (D109, 625.25) respectively.
Manneh responded that during all these transactions, the Director of Finance would raise cheques in his name and would do the withdrawals from the GT Bank account, or the Reliance bank account where deposits are made for salaries of staff and others.
Sitting continues.
