By MUHAMMED S. BAH
The report on the Public Accounts Committee/ Public Entreprises Committee (PAC PEC) Recommendations on the audited accounts of Government of the Gambia for the year ended 2011 was tabled by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs before law makers on Monday 19 September 2016. This report consists of Audited queries and recommendation on various matters.
In his presentation of this nine-page document to the National Assembly chaired by Hon. Fatou Mbye, Deputy Speaker, Mr. Lamin Camara, Permanent Secretary 2 of the Ministry of Finance, said the audit queries on the issue of un-presented payment vouchers has been a subject of previous management letters and audit report on the audit of the Government of the Gambia financial statements for 2011 showed that 162 payment vouchers were not presented for examination.
On the response given by the Ministry of Finance and Auditor General’s Department (AGD), he noted that out of the 162 documents (D6,129,930.24) that the auditors listed as un-presented, 117 documents (D5,902,026.47) were subsequently located and are available at the Accounting Unit of AGD for inspection by the auditors.
He continued to highlight the audit queries and the respective responses given by his ministry and the AGD.
The audit queries that were made and received responses from the ministry and audit office are in the following areas: Payment Vouchers without Supporting Documents, Breach of GPPA Regulations/ Payment Vouchers with Single Quotations, Virements, Misclassification of Expenses, Exclusion of Government Funds at Commercial Banks in Financial Statements, Cash and Bank, Dormant Accounts, 1mprest, Un-presented Loan Agreement Documents, Non-disclosure of Domestic Debt Holders, On-lending to Government Business Enterprises (GBEs), Non-disclosure of Grants Received, Un-presented Revenue Vouchers, Contingency Fund, GRA tax arrears not provided, Non Consolidation of Self-Accounting Projects, No reconciliation between MOFEA records and Creditors and No record of Domestic Debt Information.
Following the presentation of the report, the Finance Permanent Secretary and his large delegation of officials from his ministry were asked by the lawmakers to come back on Wednesday, 21 September 2016, for a further scrutiny of the report.
