According to the National Audit Office’s conclusion on the audit of the award of contract to Securiport for the administrative and management of immigration security services at the Banjul International Airport, Securiport relied on a clause to demand payment of GMD164 million from government for the late implementation of the project.

“There is scope for significant improvement in transparency especially in the area of negotiations and awarding of Government contracts. This is evident from the numerous clauses of this contract that tends to benefit Securiport at the expense of government,” the NAO report reveals.

“One of the clauses absolved Securiport of any liability for any delays in the provision of services while a separate clause of the contract holds government to account for any delay in the collection of the security fee.”

NAO says this could have been avoided if government had considered the comments, and advice provided by Ministry of Justice before the contract was signed. 

The audit report further highlighted that the extension of the contract to additional five years exposes government to high termination cost if it chooses to terminate the contract before its term ends.

The NAO report further states that there is also a need for the involvement of key stakeholders in any contract negotiation including the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Justice whilst the involvement of the Office of the President in the awarding of these contracts is recognised, its consummation of the entire contract alone without the involvement of key stakeholders raises a lot of suspicion of impropriety and corruption.

“There is a need to improve training of immigration officers to be able to setup the Immigration Information Control System (IICS) servers through all the stages and control the database management and system administration. A detailed technical and financial proposal was not provided by the company (Securiport)) for review by relevant stakeholders in order to assess whether the company has the financial means to embark on such an investment. 

“These issues highlighted above have necessitated the urgency to review the contract in its entirety with possible amendments for sustained mutual benefit.”