Two witnesses, one being a former KMC staff and the other a supervisor for Metrix Solutions, a technology company, appeared to testify about the transactions deleted from the Council's system.
Yankuba Sonko was a cashier for the KMC but now works at the National Audit Office (NAO) since June 2024. Lamin Ceesay, on the other hand, is an IT technician and supervisor for Metrix.
Witness Yankuba Sonko began working for KMC as revenue collector in May 2010. In 2018, he was deployed to the market and returned to the Council in July 2019 until 2021 as a receiving cashier.
He said that as a cashier, he used to receive cash and do reconciliation before depositing the funds in the bank accounts of the Council. He said the banks he deposited funds were Eco Bank, Mega Bank and Agib Bank.
He added that he used to do pre-finances for the Council in cases of emergencies, like fire outbreaks at the dumpsite. He stated that after collecting revenues, he used to deposit them in the morning the following day.
He added that when if they made mistakes in their entries in the system, they were cannot delete them, and the only thing they could do was to go to their supervisor to do a reversal. He added that he could not delete anything as a cashier.
The auditors suspected fraud of over two million dalasi with respect to rates as of 2020 for transactions that were deleted while the monies were not taken to the bank.
Sonko admitted that he recorded the information in the system as he was the only cashier for rates. The auditors provided the dates, names of the property owners, receipts, amounts paid, and other information. Sonko said the bank slips are attached to the reports he prepared. He was ordered to brinh the reports and the banking slips.
In the same vein, Lamin Ceesay, Metrix Solution technician, testified that they provide technological solutions. The company proprietors are Amadou Jallow (managing director) and Basiru Momodou Conteh (technical adviser).
Ceesay said he supervises a team of about six developers in the company.
On their business relations with the KMC, he said they developed an application for the KMC to manage their property rates system, which included their receipt system. He said about 15 people from the KMC were trained on how to operate the application.
He added that the Metrix created the system and performed maintenance and updates, while the KMC retain the user rights.
“We cannot access their system without their authority,” he attested.
He said with the permission of the KMC, they can access it remotely but cannot do so without permission.
He was asked about the agreement they have with the KMC, but he stated that he did not come with it. He was asked to ordered it the following day.
He affirmed that the application has no option for deleting records. He was informed that the audit report for 2020 indicated that transactions amounting to over two million dalasis were deleted. The auditors provided details of each of those transactions deleted.
Witness Ceesay affirmed the auditors were right, adding that the deletion was made from the daily table.
“You cannot delete in the database,” he explained.
He said the database contains information such as names of property owners, contacts, invoices and other information.
Ceesay also appeared the following day (Tuesday) to demonstrate how the system works.
