Madam Saho, a resident of Basse who started work at the Basse Area Council in 2018 as a revenue collector under licence, has been an internal auditor at BsAC for over two years. As a witness, she testified before the Commission on Monday and Tuesday.
On how payments were supposed to be done, Madam Saho said the procurement officers should raise the GPPA procurement forms and invoices, which have to be sanctioned by management before a voucher is raised. She said that from there, it would be sent to her office for auditing and approval.
"In whose name should the payments be made?" Counsel Patrick Gomez asked.
"The person who should receive it," the witness said, adding that it was “wrong to issue cheques for payments in the name of the Finance Director and others”.
It was also brought to the attention of the witness by Counsel Gomez that the audit report found that monies were withdrawn from ward accounts in 2022, but there were no development activities in that year.
"The money should have been for development, but I don't know where they spent the money," the witness said in her reaction to this.
On the issue of trekking allowance, the witness said the BsAC used to pay D500 to collectors outside. She explained that they were not entitled to such payments because their job description is "field work”.
Nonetheless, she informed Commissioners that it had stopped.
The witness said when collectors go to the villages that they are designated to do collection, that should not be regarded as trekking.
"You just go and do your collection, and you are paid D500 Dalasi allowance!" the witness said.
The Commission asked the witness about the specifics of projects by the area council that were awarded to different contractors, the witness said she was not aware of it.
