Gambia: Brikama Council Forged Documents to Buy 2 Vehicles Worth D1m - LGCI

24 August 2023
The Point (Banjul)
By Jankey Ceesay

Local Government Commission of Inquiry (LGCI) during Wednesday proceedings disclosed that Brikama Area Council had engaged in forgery to procure and purchase two used pick-ups worth D1,700,000.

This came to light while Ebrima Sanyang, director of Procurement Policy and Operations at GPPA and Samba J.B. Tambura, director of Compliance were testifying before the Commission.

It was noticed that when BAC initially wrote to GPPA applying for approval for the procurement of these two pick-up vehicles, it was through Request for Quotation method. The GPPA declined their request on the grounds that the vehicles were used ones and not cartered for in the act or regulation of public procurement.

However, Deputy Lead Counsel Gomez informed the Commission that after the GPPA's decision, the council had sent reconsideration letter to GPPA twice and on the last reconsideration letter, they informed the GPPA that they did not have money to buy vehicle and in that case, they were making payment plan with the supplier.

The council also informed GPPA that they wanted to use those vehicles for revenue collection because their revenue collection was "seriously" affected by Covid-19 and those vehicles were needed to do their collection.

They also said the fire outbreak at their market caused them additional burden in terms of giving out support.

Counsel Gomez said the same day that the three correspondences took place was when GPPA approved BAC's request. He said GPPA informed BAC that they were giving them condition for approval without admission of liabilities.

Counsel Gomez disagreed with the GPPA's decision, saying "why should you grant BAC any conditional approval while none of the procedures was correct."

"All those documents were forged; this does not make sense. This cannot be an oversight on the side of the authority," Counsel Gomez argued.

Counsel Gomez further told the two GPPA witnesses that the BAC's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Modou Jonga singed all the applications and that the contract committee met when approval had already been given whereas it should be the other way around as the committee had to meet to discuss before applying to GPPA for approval.

"There are visible fraudulent activities in this procurement of BAC and no regard for the procedures," Counsel Gomez said.

He told the witnesses that despite all these, GPPA approved the procurement for BAC.

"BAC thanked GPPA immensely for approving their request. They were thanking you for taking part in the scheme," he said.

Deputy Lead Counsel Gomez asked the witnesses how it was possible for their office to grant BAC's request approval with all the red flags.

In response, the duo said they did not have an answer to that. However, they both agreed that BAC did not comply with any of the requirements.

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