By Awa Sowe
On Saturday April 23rd, the Ministry of Health convened a press conference in reaction to the National Audit Office’s (NAO) recently published audit report on the Covid -19 activities and finances.
As mandated by the constitution, the NAO carried out a special audit following the outbreak of Covid-19 with the objective of tracking and reporting on government’s response and measures to the pandemic as well as recommend ways by which the government can strengthen its response to emergency situations.
Launched on April 21st 2022, the report highlighted irregularities and mismanagement of public resources by government institutions. According to the audit findings, in many cases, the institutions responsible for the different sectors of the Covid-19 response failed to provide accurate, valid and verified documents to auditors while other times no documents were provided at all.
In disagreement with the findings of the report, the Minister of Health, Dr Ahmadou Lamin Samateh described it as “deeply shocking”.
He explained that the procurement of the medical equipment and consumables was totally carried out by the Project Coordinating Unit (CPU) together with the World Bank task team, and that the expenditure was from the World Bank Grant of $3,946,637.10 was done through the World Bank procedure and process. He clarified that the D100 million transferred from the covid 19 funds to PCU was his ministry's contribution to the construction of the treatment centre at Farato, since the World Bank ended up carrying out the entire procurement of the equipment with the said amount of $3,946,637.10.
He said the audit team has found out that this overall payment of $3,946,637.10 was done directly from the World Bank Grant and that the D100 million is still in the PCU account to be used for the construction of the said emergency treatment centre at Farato. “This decision was based on the World Bank health task team leader’s [advice]. The National Audit team did not consult the World Bank but went ahead to do a report; which is not fair,” Dr Samateh accused.
He affirmed that his ministry has no evidence, reason or indication to back the audit statement that the identification and selection of suppliers that were awarded the contract, could have been done through an individual discretion with the intention to gain benefits at the expense of the government, as claimed.
On the audit report claim on lack of GPPA approval on single sourcing and the non assessment of alternative sources of transportation, the Health Minister said based on the reasons that the Ministry of Health raised, and the fact that the payment voucher with documentation containing bank transfer details of Liza Transport company, meant that the transaction would be through a bank transfer. However, Dr Samateh said his ministry was not privy to any prior information neither was it consulted when the payment method was to be eventually changed, if that was the case as reported by Audit. He advised Audit to liaise with Accountant General's Department for further clarification.
Further on failure to obtain GPPA approval on single sourcing claimed by the report, Dr Samateh pointed out that the amount paid, Euro 39,933.39, equivalent to 2,217,987.87 was Gambia's contribution to the cost of hiring the chartered flight that brought COVID organics from Madagascar to ECOWAS countries. He said this was entirely coordinated by the Bissau Guinean government and that his ministry's role was to receive the donation and contribute to the charter cost of the aircraft. Thus, he argued, failure to obtain GPPA approval on single sourcing does not apply in this regard.