By Makutu Manneh
Lamin Sanneh, a revenue collector at the Brikama market said he does not have a personal account with Vista Bank, but the Commission provided him with bank details to show that he was not truthful to the aforesaid body.
The witness failed to account for a lot of collections he made. The Commission discovered that he made certain savings in his personal accounts. Despite this, the witness insisted that he does not own the accounts. His evidence is that he only goes to deposit revenue he collected into the Council’s account at Vista Bank and not his personal account. He was given the account to see and after looking at it, he stated that the account was in his name. He continued with his insistence that he does not have an account with Vista Bank.
“I do not have a butut in Vista Bank. I only have a salary account, which is a current account. I do not have any other account apart from that,” the witness said.
The witness had deposit slips pertaining to deposits he made in his private account.
“Then who owns the account?” Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez asked.
The witness replied “I don’t know.”
He said his Market Master Yankuba Kujabi usually writes a bank account for them (revenue collectors) to deposit their collections.
The account bearing the name of the witness has some deposits and some of them were: 9th of June 2022 – D4000; 9th of June 2022 – D4000; 16th June 2022 – D3280; 1st August 2022 – D12,000.
Chairperson Jainaba Bah told witness Sanneh that the Commission will write to the bank to confirm the details of the opening of the account. She warned that if they found out that he lied, the Commission would apply the law on him. Witness Sanneh still maintained that he has no personal account with Vista Bank.
Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez continued with his questioning. He focused on the receipts the witness obtained from the Principal Cashier of the Brikama Area Council, Lamin Kantong Kanteh.
The 6 GTR receipts were dated: on the 18th October 2022 – D11,700; on the 8th September 2022 – D4000; on the 10th February 2022 – D7205; 24th January 2022 – D12,900; 31st January 2022 – D12,850; and 17th February 2022 – D6875.
Counsel Gomez told the witness that having those GTRs meant he has collected revenue and deposited it in the Council’s account. The witness agreed and claimed that the funds were deposited in the BAC accounts at the Vista bank account.
The witness said he does not have the recordings of those collections in his cash book. He testified that he does not also have any records to show the collections he made during those periods.
When asked why he did not keep the records, the witness said at the time, they were using a digital revenue collection device and he was thinking the machine was keeping the records of the transactions. This claim was dismissed by Counsel Gomez, who said the witness had been collecting revenue using the device in 2021 and still kept the records in his cash book. The Counsel said the witness cannot come to 2022 and stop recording the transactions he was carrying out because he was thinking the device was recording the information. Chairperson Jainaba Bah told the witness that he was trained before he commenced using the revenue collection device. He confirmed it as true. The witness testified that the idea of not keeping records was his decision.
The witness was handed the BAC Vista Bank account to check his deposits during those periods. He confirmed that the statement of account did not show his deposits as claimed. He was asked to search for bank slips, but he does not have any.
Inspite of failing to justify his claim that he had deposited the funds in the Council’s account, the witness still insisted that he had the bank slips and should be given time to search for them.
“You must produce it otherwise if you cannot show evidence of it being deposited in the bank, it only means you stole the money,” Counsel Gomez said.
The witness replied: “No. I did not steal the money. That is not my habit and the whole of Council knows that.”
Counsel Gomez said the witness should account for the money when he reappears.
The witness claimed that he has repaid the shortage he recorded. He claimed that he made a payment of D6725 in the Brikama Area Council account at GTBank.
