By Makutu Manneh
Mam Sait Jallow, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Brikama Area Council has testified before members of the Local Government Commission of Inquiry that political interference affected their work at the Council.
Mr Jallow explained that some of the technicians of the Council were appointed by politicians and that if they want to take certain measures, someone somewhere will engage them. He said some defrauded the Council and they could not take any steps against them. Jallow added that sometimes the Council would want to take steps such as sacking, suspending or taking other measures against the culprits, but some people would come to him and interfere with the process.
Jainaba Bah, the Chairperson of the Commission informed Jallow that to use the excuse of political interference for the interruption of their work is not fair to the Gambian people because they have instruments such as the Local Government Act, the Local Government Audit and Finance Act and the Financial Manual for Local Government Councils, to take the necessary steps.
“I cannot see why you did not use them. You could have written to them. You should have taken remedial actions against them. The law is not allowing you to be selective in what you do,” she told the witness.
“You were employed to perform services. I think there should be a rethink in the so-called political interference. People should perform. I personally, I will not buy that. This happened in 2018, 2019 and was repeated over the years,” Chairperson Bah said.
Witness Jallow agreed that he failed to take disciplinary action against revenue collectors who could not account for Council’s revenues at the time, adding that collectors were manipulating receipts. Jallow added that he came to know about some of the problems through audit reports.
Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez reminded him of his own response to the audit query where he mentioned that the issue will be addressed with immediate effect.
“You keep on saying you will solve things, but you solved nothing, because the auditor said the issue was not resolved,” Lead Counsel Gomez said.
He further told the witness that with an effective system, he does not need an external auditor to know about these issues.
“Yes, I agree. This is why I told you the system was not functioning,” the witness said, and said when he came into office in 2014, he found the internal audit unit of the Council not effective because the system was new and young.He added that there was a capacity gap as there was nothing more than three staff in that unit but said they are trying to address the issue for the Unit to function.
The witness said his employment at the Councils started in 1979 and that he first started at the Basse Area Council and was later moved to the Brikama Area Council in 1989 or 1990. He said he was the CEO of the BAC from 1996 to 1998, and was again the CEO from 2014 to 2019, when he retired.
