According to the audit findings, the IEC’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Sambujang Njie, claimed that no cash grant had been received from any donor. However, the auditors discovered otherwise; a D534,000 cash grant from the ECOWAS Mission had indeed been received, but no supporting documents or expenditure breakdowns were provided.
“The audit discovered that a grant amounting to five hundred and thirty-four thousand dalasis was received from ECOWAS Mission, but details of this grant and how it was utilized were not provided,” the audit report stated.
The auditors recommended that the IEC management should explain the purpose of the grant and how it was used, a request that remains unanswered.
Hon. Kebba Lang Fofana, a member of the FPAC, accused the IEC of deliberately avoiding accountability.
“If you look at the management response, it doesn’t address the issue before the committee. The auditors only wanted to know the motive behind the ECOWAS grant and how it was used. That’s all,” Hon. Fofana charged.
In response, CEO Sambujang Njie insisted that his office had already explained the grant’s purpose and provided relevant documents.
“We believe this was provided to the auditors but they were not satisfied with the explanation given. The funds were meant for training, and we even spent more than that amount. The vouchers were provided,” Njie said.
“There’s nowhere in your management response that addresses this issue. Your response was general in nature it didn’t speak to the specific audit findings,” Hon. Fofana said.
Njie argued that the Commission’s response was meant to be holistic, covering all donor assistance rather than one specific grant.
Fofana, however, fired back: “The findings were specific. They clearly asked for details of the ECOWAS grant, its purpose and how it was spent. If your goal was to clear the findings, you should have directly addressed that.”
The National Audit Office (NAO) representative backed the auditors’ position, confirming that the IEC had not provided the requested details before the audit was finalised.
“As far as we are concerned, we were not provided with these details up to the time of finalizing the management letter,” the NAO official asserted.
Njie finally pledged to provide the missing documentation.
“We are committed to providing the details,” he stated.
