By: Kebba AF Touray
The National Audit Office (NAO) has reported to the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) that it has under-spent a total of Seventy-Four Million, Nine Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Seventy-Three Dalasi (D74,949,873.00), between the fiscal years 2020 and 2021.
NAO reported this on Monday, 15April 2024, during their appearance before members of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC), for the presentation of their activity report and financial statements for the fiscal year 2020 and 2021.
Alhagie Drammeh, the Director of Corporate Services at NAO,said in the 2020 fiscal year, the office’s total income was D72,245,983.00, comprising subvention and other receipts, and adds that even though their income is predominantly on subvention, they sometimes receive receipts.
“For the year 2020, our receipt was just D367, 919.00. Our total income for 2019 was D79,180,910.00. Our payments for the year 2020 was D54,250,996.00, with a surplus of D17,994,987.00 compared to 2019 which stood at D64,416,434.00 with a surplus of D14,764,476.00,” he said; adding that the original budget of the office in 2020 was D109, 305,01, but their revised budget was D86,898,721.00 whilst their actual expenditure was less than half at around D49,545,356.00.
“This means that we have under-spent a total of D37,353,365.00 in our 2020 financial transactions,” he said.
Reporting on the 2021 reports of the National Audit Office, he informed members of FPAC that total receipts were D94,538,935.00 compared to D72,245,983.00 in 2020, whereas total payments for the year 2020 was D84,566,822.00 compared to D54,250, 996.00 for 2020.
“For 2021, we had a surplus of D9,972,113.00 compared to D17,994,987.00, which is a surplus for 2020. For 2021, our original budget was D127,659,428.00 but the final budget was revised to D119,719,428.00 and our actual expenditure for that year was D82,122, 920.00”, he said.
Binta Touray, a Communication Specialist at NAO, said in 2020 and 2021, they carried out activities including a total of nine audits including but not limited to the audits on Municipalities and performance audits on entities.
“We are still challenged with audit capacity gaps and access to information and the lack of follow up on the audit recommendation during our audit exercises,” she lamented.
“We conducted a total of 244 audits and delivered 132 reports. We have won the best regional audit performance on obstetric care of public hospitals. We also conducted series of stakeholder engagements with stakeholders such as the media and the one that our staff participated in”, she said.
According to Hassan Jatta, a representative of Auditors of HARD and Co Audit Firm, they have made some observations on the reports of NAO and these include the closing fund balance difference of a little over D1 million.
The consideration of the NAO audit report and financial statements is slated for today Tuesday 16April 2024, during which the Audit Office will respond to the observations made by the auditors, and thereafter, FPAC will adopt the reports of the audit office, and will further prepare another report which will be tabled before the plenary for final scrutiny, consideration and adoption.
