Another person who collects taxes for the Brikama Area Council (BAC), Bakary Drammeh, told the Local Government Commission of Inquiry (LGCI) that he didn’t deposit the money he made at the bank during the whole year of 2022. He said that he returned all of the money to the Council’s Trust Bank account in 2023.
Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez asked the witness why he kept the money he collected for a year without putting it in a bank account. Drammeh said it was his mistake because he was under pressure from his family.
“The only thing that the Area Councils get is our pay.” “I’ve worked for the Council for 20 years and don’t get any benefits like a staff loan,” he said.
The lead lawyer, Gomez, told him that all workers have the right to loans and to own a home, but that doesn’t mean they can steal.
Witness Drammeh said he also didn’t pay enough taxes on the money he brought in. He said that some of these mistakes were caused by the transportation costs he paid for with the money he earned.
In their audit report, the Council’s internal auditors found that the witness did not pay 108,800 Dalasi. That being said, the witness said he went back to BAC’s audit unit and made things right with the auditor, Mr. Kandeh. The auditor later found out that the undeposited amount was only 6,000 Dalasi and not 108,800. In court, he said that Amadou Jobarteh, Lamin Kanteh, and Mr. Kandeh told him that he was short on six thousand Dalasi (D6,000).
The witness was given his cash book to back up his claim that he only had 6,000 Dalasi (D6,000) short, but after two tries, he couldn’t come up with a good reason using the records in his cash book.
“You didn’t turn in all the money you earned,”
“Yes,” said the witness.
The inspectors learned that the witness collected D350,000 between April 1, 2022, and July 6, 2022, but he still hadn’t deposited D108,800. He said that the internal inspectors had cleared him, but he didn’t show any proof to back that up.
The witness told the judge that he knows it is his legal duty to put the Council’s money in the bank.
The sitting goes on.