‘Non-members of procurement unit conducted transactions’

The Commission also heard from the witness that the procurement unit was not involved in most of the procurement transactions for 2022.

Witness Sanyang, who is the current director of Procurement Policy and Operations at GPPA, relayed that the Kerewan Area Council did not have annual procurement plan, and that the CEO failed to appoint members of the inspection and acceptance committee.

He flagged these issues raised as serious violation of the GPPA Act and necessary regulations by the area council.

Furthermore, Mr Sanyang told the Commission that members of the contracts committee at the Kuntaur Area Council were Momodou Sambou (CEO), Saikou Jawara (chairman), Morro Keita (finance director) and Mamadi Camara (procurement clerk).

The GPPA staff told the Commission that it was wrong for the chairman of the council to be chairman of the contracts committee. “It is against the law; it is not correct.” he said.

The witness told the court that GPPA observed that 96.6% of the procurement transactions were done through single sourcing, which was not even encouraged by GPPA as it was not the most competitive method in procurement.

The witness also indicated that in most cases the regulations and requirements for single source were not completed.

He added that there must be receipts, purchase orders and evaluation among other steps.