The Director of Compliance and Procurement Practices at the Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA) has said that procurement transactions at the Banjul City Council (BCC) fell short of due processes.

Samba J.B. Tambura revealed this fact at the local government commission where he has appeared in the past two days, saying that the BCC had “undertaken a number of procurement transactions that were not in line with due processes”, such as biases in the awarding of contracts and procurement without prior approval from the country’s public procurement body.

Mr Tambura has been appearing before the Commission since Monday to shed light on procurement practices of local government authorities and their level of compliance.

Over the course of his testimony for the past two days, he told the Commission that per regulation of the country, there were post-review and prior approvals. For the post-review, he said: “This is a procurement whose value is 500,000 or below.”

In his explication, he said institutions and local government authorities could carry out transactions at the institutional level without seeking the approval of the GPPA, and at the end of the year, such transactions were reviewed.

However, he stated that “when the procurement is a million or above, the institution is expected to seek the approval of GPPA” at every stage of the transaction.

On who appoints procurement officers in Gambian institutions, specifically local government authorities, he stated: “As far as I know, GPPA is not involved in the appointment of any procurement officer.”