By Makutu Manneh
Landing Colley, a resident of Brikama and the Director of the Internal Audit Unit of the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) on Wednesday, 18 September, testified before the Local Government Commission of Inquiry. He mentioned that staff in the KMC’s Internal Audit Unit lacked the capacity to audit the council’s financial and administrative operations.
His appointment letter was dated 28 April 2023, and it was admitted in evidence. He succeeded Basiru Njie, who was occupying that office. Njie is still working in the Internal Audit Unit of KMC.
He was called to give an account of what he found in the office he was occupying and how things were run there.
The witness said at the time of assuming office, there were 5 staff in the Internal Audit Unit. He added that the Audit Unit was without a director for at least 2 years. He testified that there was a capacity gap in terms of knowledge about how audit works.
He testified that KMC was “medium” in terms of control processes. He explained that there is a will from both the policy makers and the management of KMC to improve themselves, but the problem is that they have limited exposure to the legislative framework governing the councils.
“The understanding of the [Local Government] Finance and Audit Act was a bit low,” the witness said.
He said the laws include the Local Government Audit and Finance Act and Financial Manual for Local Government Councils.
For his office, he said the staff therein have a capacity gap regarding auditing and how it is done.
The witness said he did a procurement audit looking at the procurement activities, contracts awarded, and the evaluation criteria used.
“There was no independent evaluation committee,” he said.
He said he advised the KMC to establish an independent evaluation committee because some of the policy makers in KMC do management work.
“When I came in, I did what we call a procurement audit,” the witness said, adding, “I looked at the procurement processes, how contracts were awarded [and] the evaluation processes. When I looked at that, I found out that, when it comes to assessment of contracts, there was no independent evaluation committee.”
He stated that in the council, policy makers perform administrative functions and, therefore, they are not best suited to do evaluation of contracts.
“[For example] Let’s say the job is not completed and as an auditor, if you have a query you will go back to the same people who did the evaluation. So there is that conflict there,” the witness said.
He agreed with Lead Counsel Gomez’s statement that without an independent evaluation committee, the contracts may be susceptible to fraud, nepotism, and favoritism, among other wrongs.
The witness mentioned that the Council payments for meetings do not follow due procedure. He stated that the council makes payment immediately after the meeting without subjecting the payment to vetting.
“What I found on the ground is that payments were done immediately after the sittings were concluded. To me, that does not go in line with best practice. You have to allow the process to flow to ensure verifications are done.”
“There was no adequate time for verification. It is open to fraud,” the witness said.
The witness said the time needed for verification would allow for vetting who was present through the attendance list and also for it to pass through the Internal Audit Unit for pre-payment auditing.
The witness said he also did Payroll and Human Resources Audit, Surprise Cash Count Audit for Cashiers, and ‘Mbalit’ Audit.
The Commission requested him to provide all the audit reports he did.
The witness said there were some audit reports prepared from 2018 to 2023 by the internal audit department of KMC. He added that the reports he found in his office were not proper.
“Even myself, I cannot understand them,” he said.
“The staff were never exposed to auditing,” he said.
He was asked whether vouchers and other necessary documents pass through his office before payments are made. He responded that some of them come to him, but others do not. He added that this means the same thing applied in the past.
He was also questioned about approval of payments. He agreed with Counsel Gomez that the law is clear as to how to make approvals for payments in line with section 305 of the Financial Manual. He testified that there should have been a document to show how much the CEO can approve, the amount to go to the mayor, and the amount to be approved by the Council.
The witness also said the mayor is briefed every day about financial and administrative matters of the council. He added that he has never seen a payment voucher that was approved by the mayor.
He will reappear before the commission on another date to be scheduled.
