“Was there a cashbook assigned to the paying-out cashier [Saihou Sabally]?” Counsel Gomez posed, adding that Sabbally said he was not given a cashbook.”
“No, what I could remember,” Cham said, “is that he used to have payment vouchers. Sometimes he used to go to the bank and withdraw money and do some payments. He also kept those vouchers. That I can tell, but when it comes to cashbook, I cannot recall.”
On whether the paying-out cashier should have a cashbook, Jaja said he is not versed in accounting but that ought to have been the best practice.
The lead counsel interjected, stating: “That is the law. The law is any individual tasked with the reception of money or dealing with money of that kind should have a cashbook. Why would the Paying-out cashier not have a cashbook? He withdrew over a hundred million dalasis, and cannot account for half or three quarter of what he had withdrawn. There is no cashbook, no record of payment made after withdrawal.”
Cham held that Saihou Sabally worked for many years at the KMC before he (Cham) joined the council and was also under the director of finance. He thus stated that the best person to answer such questions would be he (Sabally).
“No, you are the best person, or whichever CEO was there would have been the best person and the director of finance. How can a paying out cashier operate for even a day without a record of payments made?” the lead counsel quizzed again.
“That is something else. For my side, I have been too busy to know whether he had a cash book or not. Maybe his supervisor would shed light on that.
Asked what he meant by busy, he explained: “If you are a CEO, you deal with the department heads, managers. You hardly deal with these people. I did not come across it.”
The lead counsel did not buy the assertion. He insisted that if the paying-out cashier had no cashbook, he should have known by virtue of the work bestowed on him by the manual. “Fairly, there would be bank reconciliations,” the counsel said.
Cham stated that his expectation was that he should have all what was required as a cashier, but the lead counsel slammed this argument as unreasonable. “Not expectation, it is mandatory.”
The lead counsel affirmed to Cham that Sabbally said he had no cashbook. “then that is strange,” he said.
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