Fatty was appointed in 2006. He provided the inquiry with his confirmation letter, dated 9th of March 2010, which was signed by Momodou Jonga, acting public relations officer, on behalf of the CEO. The letter as well as his written statement, dated 20th November 2023, were later admitted into records.
Fatty, who holds a foundation certificate in human resources studies from St. Steven’s, testified that he has not been promoted since the date of his appointment as a revenue collector. In 2018, he was a flat rates collector at New Yundum, and he spent almost 5 years there before he was moved to Old Yundum.
The revenue collector provided two of his cash books, one covering 2015 -2020 and the other covering 2021 to date, and both were admitted into evidence. According to him, in 2018 and 2019, he used to hand over monies to the principal cashier and would be issued receipts.
Fatty said in 2020, there was instruction passed onto all revenue collectors to deposit all collected monies to the bank as the council began using revenue collection devices. The witness said he used to deposit funds at the Eco Bank, GT Bank and Trust Bank.
Mr Fatty also admitted that he used to suppress council revenues. Questioned over such practices, he said he used to go with his private vehicle for assessment, and when it broke down, he usually used council revenue to repair it.
He explained that the vehicle belongs to him, purchased by his brother residing abroad, but the council used to fuel it.
On the issue of D31,000 collected from 7th of July to 5th of October 2022, using the revenue collection device, but failing to declare it, he admitted that he was also aware.
The Commission informed Fatty about other findings against him in 2018. Specifically, on October 18, when he failed to declare D2250; on October 5, he failed to declare D2000; and October 19, 2018, he failed to declare D28,050. These amounts total D32,300).
Reacting to this, Fatty said he had seen it and he had made the payments to the council after the audit finding against him.
It was also discovered that Fatty had cancelled a lot of entries in his cashbook. Chairperson Jainaba Bah thus asked: “Why did you make entries in your cash book and cancelled them?”
“I make (sic) mistakes sometimes,” he responded.
“Every page in your cash book has cancellation. Is that all a mistake?” Chairperson Bah posed. Fatty responded in the affirmative.
“It is not true,” Chairperson Bah put to him.
“It is true,” he insisted.
“Why do (sic) you make cancellation and the total of whatever you collected does not tally?” the chairperson asked, but Fatty claimed that they tallied.
Therefore, he was given his own cash book to ascertain but he could not substantiate his claim that his collections tallied with the total in his cash book.
Also, the Commission raised the fact that Fatty usually dodged auditing processes, which he admitted to. He was also told that in most cases, he did not go to the internal audit unit of the council for auditing. He admitted to failing to go for auditing but insisted that he deposited the monies at the bank.
When he was asked to produce the receipt from his cash book, Fatty said there were no receipts at the time as sometimes he used to forget to collect the receipts.
In that regard, Fatty was given the Eco Bank statement for BAC to show the Commission the collection on 7 April 2022 amounting to 30,200, which he claimed to have deposited. “It is not here,” he said.
He was also given the GT Bank statement of account for BAC. “It is not here,” he said.
He was given the Trust Bank account statement of BAC. He also confirmed that the amount was not in the Trust Bank account statement.
