By: Kebba AF Touray
Officials of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) have appealed for extended time period to be able to complete their ongoing special audit and to reappear for submission of their audited accounts and financial statements before members of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the National Assembly.
The IEC officials made this appeal to FPAC on Monday, 6May 2024, during their appearance before members of the Committee for the presentation of their annual activity report and audited financial statements for scrutiny, consideration and adoption by FPAC.
At the onset of the interface, the Chairperson of FPAC Hon. Alhagie S.Darboe, asked officials of the IEC to explain the reason that led to the non-submission of their reports and in response, the Chairperson of the IEC, Alieu Moumar Njai, told FPAC that the auditors are currently auditing the election body and “that is why we are pleading for more time, so that they will be able to wrap up the auditing exercise and we submit our reports”.
The Chief Executive Officer of the IEC, SambujangNjie, also told members of FPAC that it is due to the special audit exercise being currently carried out by the National Audit Office, that prevented their external auditors from starting their audit, “as a result of which the Commission is appealing humbly and kindly requesting for more time, and once NAO completes their special audit on the IEC, the external auditors will start as soon as possible”. He further explained that they have already contracted the services of an external Audit firm call HAD and CO, and they are waiting on the Commission to call them to commence the audit exercise.
“At the moment, we have an ongoing audit exercise currently ongoing at the IEC by NAO which started in January and up to now, this audit exercise is not yet complete,” he said.
At this juncture, FPAC Chairperson Darboe put it to the officials of the IEC that the submission of reports to the Committee is sanctioned by the constitution and that the said special audit may not be of interest to them. He said if it is about the annual reports of the IEC, the IEC can clarify that, but he does not know how the issue of this special audit is connected to the submission of their annual reports.
On this note, CEO Njie clarified that the IEC is very much conscious of the fact that they must submit their annual reports and audited financial accounts to FPAC, and that they have submitted their activity reports up to the year 2021, and are left with the years 2022 and 2023.
“We started to work on them and even call the auditors after their August 2023 appearance.We engaged our auditors and they were to start the audit exercise but NAO came in to say they are government auditors and have the right to audit every government institution,” CEO Njie said.
“Once public funds have been used, we are bound to be audited and hence they are government auditors who should audit. In the past, they were contracting this service to external auditors, and the IEC received them and auditing started,” CEO Njie told FPAC.
He added that this is why the activity reports for 2022 and 2023 are not completed, whilst the activity report for 2022 is in compilation stage.
“We are just appealing to this committee to give us time to bring out the activity and audit reports of the external auditors as soon as NAO is ready with us,” he said.
At this point, NAO Officials confirmed to FPAC that they are conducting a special audit exercise on the IEC about the expenses on election periods for the year 2022 and 2023, and they are hoping to print out the management letter as their reply, so that they can finalize the report at the end of the month.However, he said at no time was it agreed that the activity and audit report by their external auditors will be put on halt.
Subsequently, it was resolved that NAO can submit their report on the special audit exercise to FPAC, whilst the IEC submits their report on or before 30thSeptember 2024, and the Committee will ask the IEC to reappear in October 2024 for the presentation of their activity reports and audited financial statements.
