By Makutu Manneh
Yaya Bah, Assistant Finance Manager of Brikama Area Council, has admitted withdrawing eleven million, four hundred and seventy thousand, three hundred and fifty-one Dalasi, two bututs, without vouchers.
Mr. Bah said these withdrawals were for the payment of salaries to staff of the Council.
At the beginning of his testimony, the witness insisted that he prepared vouchers for these withdrawals, but could not provide the Commissioners with the vouchers.
The witness said he could not provide the vouchers that correspond with these withdrawals, because the director of finance Alagie Jeng, will have to do the maths, but said the cheques he gave them to withdraw from the bank, will contain a different amount from the previous one he sent to him.
“I will not know how much he adds. He will just tell me to write an amount on the cheque and go and withdraw. After cashing out the money, I will give him the amount and we will do the reconciliation together,” he said.
“Different amounts are written in different cheques, and these can be 3 to 4 cheques. So, in this case, you will not be able to attribute it to any direct voucher. It is only the finance director who can explain this because when he is doing his calculations, we will not be present,” Bah said.
Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez asked the witness how he scrutinized the cheques before making the final payment as dictated by the financial manual. However, in his response, witness Bah said he does not scrutinize the cheques.
Counsel Gomez told witness Bah that if he had been scrutinizing the cheques given to him, he would have been able to identify a payment voucher against the withdrawals made.
The witness agreed that he would have been able to, but explained that due to the circumstances of the way the cheques were given to him, he sometimes found out that the cheques were already written in his name and signed without any voucher.
“So, when you say you were raising vouchers that was not true. You were not raising adequate supporting documents for the withdrawals,” Counsel Gomez asked.
Counsel Gomez further told him that from 2018 to 2021 when he was making these withdrawals from the Council’s account, he was an acting rate and tax manager and not an accounts clerk.
The witness responded in the positive, adding that he was still responsible for salary payments.
Counsel Gomez told him that “as the rate and tax manager, you do not have that responsibility. Your TOR does not cover paying salaries.”
The witness responded that he was paying salaries before he was deployed as the rate and tax acting manager until now.
Counsel Gomez put it to him that this should not have been the case because when he was transferred, there were senior accounts clerks and an accounts clerk.
Witness Bah said it was the finance director AlagieJeng who instructed him to continue paying salaries because, for them, his transfer was just on an acting basis.
Sittings continue.
