The Public Accounts/Public Enterprises Committees of the National Assembly Monday adopted the annual report and financial statement of the Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA).
In presenting the report before members of the committee, Tumbul Danso, Director General of the GPPA revealed that the total amount of money spent by 33 procurement organisations (POs) who submitted their monthly reports to his office from January 2010 to December 2010 stands at D261, 716, 120.76. This, he added, exceeded last year’s figure of D136, 232, 503.23 by D125, 483, 617.54.
“GPPA records show that 33 POs submitted monthly reports during the period under review, and this represents about 26.19 % of the total that should have been submitted to the authority,” he said.
According to him, out of the 33 procurement organisations that submitted their monthly reports, 3.10 % represents Central Government while 23.06 % represents public enterprises.
Danso told members of the PAC/PEC Committees that GPPA was set-up by a statute enacted on 24th December 2001, and assented to by the President of the Republic on 1st February, 2002.
Noting that two pieces of legislation govern public procurement in The Gambia namely, the Gambia Public Procurement Act 2001 and the Gambia Procurement Regulations 2003, Danso told members that GPPA has the responsibility of providing credible information to government with a view to keeping it abreast with developments affecting the public procurement reforms.
He further stated that constraints experienced by the GPPA are further reinforced by the proliferation of Pos, on one hand, and the GPPA’s inability to recruit more professional compliance officers to meet the growing demands posed by such proliferation, on the other hand.
“It is in view of this that unless such a discrepancy is addressed at the GPPA, monitoring of all POs currently established would be difficult, if not impossible; this requires that the GPPA be resourced enough to enable it to recruit and train additional professional staff to effectively monitor 126 POs,” he said.
According to Mr. Danso, there were about 89 POs in 2008 which surged to 112 in 2009 and in 2010 it has increased to 126 POs.
He said GPPA’s records during the fiscal year under review show that out of 126 POs subjected to GPPA monitoring, 26 were compliant having submitted their respective plans in a timely fashion. This, he added, represents 20 % of the total.
