Janjangbureh Area Council (JAC) constituted a contracts committee verbally and not formally as laid down by law, which is a violation of the GPPA Act.

GPPA DG and the Procurement Policy Operations Director Phoday Jaiteh and Ebrima Sanyang, jointly testified before the Local Government Commission to discuss some of these findings made by them (GPPA)

They affirmed that there is no evidence that the Janjangbureh Area Council had established a contracts committee in accordance with GPPA Act or GPPA Regulations.

It was also established that the contract committee did not ensure that monthly reports were submitted to the GPPA, and that it also did not ensure that the approved threshold was adhered to by the management.

On the implications, Ebrima Sanyang, one of the witnesses from GPPA, said a person can easily avoid responsibility when misprocurement is detected, since no member was formally appointed to carry their responsibility.

Mr Sanyang added that accountability and transparency are not assured and members can pull out when there is a mis-procurement.

The Commission also established that during review, the GPPA reviewers observed that Janjanbureh Area Council had different committees, such as the Finance Committee, Establishment Committee, and Educational Committee, which consisted of the councillors only.

The witness claimed that GPPA realised that all these committees were doing procurement on their own, without involving the procurement officer.

The fuel of the area council was not also handled by the procurement unit, which was flagged as a violation of Sections 50 and 51 of the GPPA (Amendment) Act 2018.