By Kebba AF Touray
Members of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the Gambia’s National Assembly, on Wednesday 7th May 2025, quizzed the management of the Central Bank of the Gambia (CBG) on what the committee described as inconsistencies of the bank’s compliance with the constitutional provision of submitting their audited accounts to the committee for scrutiny, on time. Members of the CBG management were engaged by FPAC to provide clarity on their inconsistency in submitting their audited accounts according to the constitution which makes it very clear in the CBG Act, that three months after the end of the financial year, the CBG shall submit their audited accounts to FPAC for scrutiny. This is indicated in Section 175 subsection 5, which talks about the timely submission of audited accounts from government Agencies, and according to the committee, the CBG has not been consistent with this constitutional requirement for the past five years.
‘‘Records show that the CBG accounts for 2023 was ready around November 2024, eight months after the stipulated time according to the constitution of the Gambia. So we want to find out why are not abiding by the constitution as well as your own act, because for the past five years, you have been inconsistent with these requirements,” Hon. Alhagie Mbowe told members of the CBG management.
In his explanation to provide clarity to members of the FPAC, the Governor of CBG Buah Saidy, said this is an issue he has been working very hard to resolve and they have been fighting internally with actors who are making it difficult for the Bank to comply with this constitutional provision and the CBG Act. He said that the most serious delay occurred in 2023, and this he said was beyond their control; that they have what they call a ‘Safeguard Assessment Division’ at the finance department of the IMF, and Gambia concluded a three-year ECF (Extended Credit Facility) program with the IMF last year.
“We then applied to start another new ECF Program this year. According to IMF’s procedures, when you conclude a program with them, the safeguard assessment division should assess the CBG and deliver a report to the IMF whenever a new program starts,” he said. He continued that the IMF did the assessment because they were in the Gambia for two weeks; that after the assessment, there were issues that they were following and among those issues was the 2024 audit report; and that they used the services of the auditors of the CBG to look into these issues.
“That process continued and after 6 months when they exhausted my patience, I called and said to them that this did not happen here. Because after three months, these audits are supposed to be concluded, and it is six months now, and if you want to audit the bank, you can come and do it,” he said. He added that this is because the division cannot use the 2023 audit report to establish what they did in 2024, and said that this push-and-pull has been there and before they finalize the issue, the report was late for submission which he said is unusual for the CBG; that this year, he made it clear to them that they were giving them whatever they want or want to do with the CBG. He said they have a reporting requirement which they do with the division, and if they want to do any follow up with the CBG, they can do it with them. Saidy told FPAC members that he was recently in Washington at the spring meeting of the World Bank and the IMF, where he emphasized the same issue.
“The auditors are on the ground. Whatever you want to know, let us deal with it, but do not delay the audit just to know what is happening the following year. It is inconsistent and it is not allowed and I am not going to accept it,” Governor said he told the Division of the IMF. He said these were the causes of the delay and not that the accounts were incomplete or there were issues within the bank for the year under review or the year being audited.
“It has nothing to do with that. I think we have reached an understanding, and going forward, it will not happen,” Governor Saidy told members of FPAC.
