By: Kebba AF Touray
Members of the Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) of the National Assembly, yesterday Tuesday 7th May 2024, engaged officials of the Management of Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) on the activity reports and financial statements of the latter, for years 2020 and 2021.
The GRTS submitted their reports to auditors and during the audit exercise, the loss of D9 million by the GRTS was said to have been noticed by the auditors, who flagged this issue as a matter of grave concern.
On the issue of audit concern that there was no provision addressing the financial and administrative provision of the Corporation, the GRTS Board explained that the 2004 GRTS Act is obsolete and said it was their decision to work on a new Act for GRTS, saying a written instruction was sent to the Ministry of Information for them to write to the Attorney General for consideration of a new GRTS Act.
The Management added that financial and administrative decisions were administered through their internal guiding documents such as service rules and operating manual, in the administration and financial management of the state broadcaster.
Another concern raised by the auditors was on the D19.79 million profit made by the GRTS, but said in 2021, there was a D9.9 million loss in revenue. Looking at this trend,auditors said it is alarming for GRTS to continue this path and there is need for initiatives from the institution to address it.
“This has been raised by the auditors and it keeps coming. It portrays a negative picture of the institution which can discourage private partners from partnering with the GRTS, and it is mainly administrative and operational expenses,” PEC members lamented.
The Committee indicated that by looking at the corresponding year, the disparity gap has grown from D108 million to D121 million and from D3 million to D5 million respectively, and said the matter needs urgent remedy.
“In 2020, GRTS realized a net profit of D19.7 million and in 2021, we recorded a lossof almost D10 million. This is as a result of an impairment that was performed in 2021 of D27 million, which warranted this loss,”the GRTS Management told members of PEC.
Members of the management of the State broadcaster added that in 2020, there was no impairment provision and emphasized that the cause of the huge loss was due to their performance in 2021.
However, members of PEC said the cause of the loss incurred by the organization was not only limited to impairment, but also on the increment in GRTS’ total expenditure in 2020 of D127 million, which increased to D170 million in 2021, representing a difference of D43 million, whereas the difference on the impairment provision was D27 million.
The GRTS management,however,admitted in 2021, there were so many activities, noting that the year was an election year when coverage of activities also increased, compared to 2019. They added that obviously, administrative cost also increased, and hence the increment of expenses to D121 million from D108 million.
Members of PEC also requested from officials of GRTS to explain how they carry out impairment provisions, because the Corporation does not have such a policy. In response to the above, GRTSmanagement explained that as per international accounting standards, it is a requirement for the organization to periodically review their assets and to perform impairment costing which they said was not performed in previous years.After discussing with external auditors and members of the management, they deemed it necessary to go by the standard and apply the impairment provision that has been captured in the financial reports.
On the provisioning policy, members of the GRTS management explained that they have developed some recommendations for review and adoption, in order to address the issues of how they go by impairment, after agreeing with PEC that the implication of not recognising impairment provisions will overstate and overvalue their assets, leading to the presentation of unfair figures.
“We totally agree and we know the consequences as has been highlighted by the auditors. This is something that is being discussed and a policy document will be drafted, and submitted to the board for approval, and we will do our impairment on this basis,” officials of the Management of GRTS told members of PEC.
The GRTS Management also lamented that in 2019, they were hit by COVID-19 and had few activities covered.
At this point, members of PEC put to the GRTS management that election expenses did not come from the said expenses, adding that in the year under review, the assembly appropriated D36 million for the GRTS to provide coverage of the election in 2021, in a supplementary appropriation for that year.
“The funds that were provided for were mainly used for capital expenditure which never went into administrative expenses. It was used to purchase equipment such as vehicles and moto-transmitters. So, the D36 Million was mainly for carpets and this was not related to the normal administrative expenditure that we are talking about,”they said.
PEC also inquired from GRTS to state whether the said D36 Million appropriated to them in 2021, was utilized to digitize GRTS to cover the entire 2021 election cycle, and whether there was another investment from the government to GRTS.
The GRTS Management in response explained that as far as their records are concerned, theyreceived D800 thousand and an extra D835 thousand from the government through the information ministry, for the initial setting up of GRTS on satellite.
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of PEC, Hon. Lamin J.Sanneh, told members of the GRTS Board that the exercise was not a witch hunt, but rather an objective driven by the firm interest to make public enterprises more viable, with the objective to maximize their productivity which will put them on a firm footing.
