In his testimony, the BAC finance boss, Alagie Jeng, relayed that the council dished out moneys dubbed “honorarium” to certain individuals, some of whom were active staff of the council.
One of the honorariums paid was on the 12 December 2018 for time keeping at the Brikama Car Park. Another honorarium was made to Sulayman Barry, the internal auditor, for escorting revenue collectors to do collection.
Jeng disclosed: “He [Sulayman Barry] was paid because he went with the team for collection, and sometimes he went with them for inspection.”
Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez referred Jeng to the Financial Manual regarding the functions of the internal auditor. He eventually admitted that the payment was wrong.
Another honorarium paid was to Lamin Luwa Conteh for “extra work” on public holiday. The same man was paid honorarium for “extra work” on Saturday and Sunday. The witness was asked what the extra works were. There was no answer.
Counsel Gomez thus addressed: “Mr Jeng, we know how it worked. You were only giving them favours.” The BAC finance boss agreed.
“They don’t have money, and you favour them by classifying it as a honorarium . . .. You see, only in 2018 you could not account for over D50,000.” Jeng acknowledged all these utterances of counsel Gomez.
“You have to tell us how it happened,” Counsel Gomez asked him, and Jeng stated that “sometimes it passed through the CEO”.
He testified that he felt that he had the obligation to make payments with regard to whatever passes through the CEO and was approved.
Counsel Gomez, at this particular juncture, referred him to the roles and functions of a finance director in Financial Manual for local government administrations. Jeng later backpedalled from his initial statement and submitted that he shouldn’t have made such payments.
On the issue of withholding tax, the witness admitted that BAC was not deducting the 10% withholding tax from the contracts they awarded as stipulated for payment to the Gambia Revenue Authority.
Additionally, Chairperson Jainaba Bah disclosed that BAC was spending millions of dalasis on single-sourced procurement transactions, which the Gambia Public Procurement Authority Act and regulations prohibit.
Jeng said these are “gaps” and the Chairperson thus asked what he meant. Witness Jeng said he meant that those were “lapses”.
“You very well know the definition of gaps. You adopted wrong procedures [of procurement],” Chairperson Bah told him.
He agreed, saying: “Yes, we took wrong procedures.”
The chairperson therefore stated: “So, you cannot tell us these are gaps. You did not follow the right system and procedure.”
The BAC finance boss also said the geology funds are meant for the development of the communities where the mining activities occur. He testified that between 2020 and 2023, BAC received D33,713,176.01 as Geology Funds.
He again admitted that these payments were not spent on the development of those communities. He explained that the council spent the money on its recurrent expenditures.
“Most of the revenues received were spent on recurrent expenditures,” he testified.
