By Talibeh Hydara
On 15 October 2024, The Gambia police announced an investigation into queries raised by the Auditor General regarding the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
The auditors uncovered that the IEC has transferred over 300,000,000 dalasis into the private bank accounts of Returning Officers for election-related expenses.
According to the auditors, IEC refused to comply in providing bank statements from the officers, prompting the intervention of the police.
Three months after the investigations were launched, The Republic is privy to the police progress report which reveals that the IEC paid its supervision, monitoring and support staff over three million dalasis in the last electoral cycle, violating several financial regulations.
According to the police, the IEC staff received D643,550 for the 2021 presidential election; D1,024,875 for the 2022 National Assembly elections; and D1,504,000 for the 2023 mayoral/chairmanship elections.
“These payments were fraudulent as far as the investigation is concerned. It’s not constitutional and also a review of the Service Code 2018 revealed that the above paid allowances were not covered within the code,” police said in the progress report, adding that the monies need to be recovered.
Though the payments into the private bank accounts of the officials were confirmed, the police are yet to establish if the payments are genuine. A police source familiar with the investigation said they will now sit with IEC officials to verify all payments made from their accounts.
Violating financial regulations
The leadership of the IEC has violated several clauses in the Public Finance Act, the police investigation has found. The financial transactions of public officers in The Gambia are regulated by Public Finance Act 2014 and its accompanying Financial Regulations 2016.
This law and regulation forbid any public officer or institution to open an account at a commercial bank without the approval of the Accountant General’s Department.
The police investigation has found that the IEC officials violated both Section 20 (2) of the Financial Regulations and Section 70 (4) of the Public Finance Act.
Meanwhile, the police have also upheld the audit finding that the Commission has single–sourced the procurement of electoral materials in violation of Gambia’s procurement law.
The IEC single-sourced the production of election materials amounting to D760,000 to the President’s Award Scheme without GPPA’s approval.
Section 44(2) of the Gambia Public Procurement Authority Act 2014 (amended in 2022) provides that a single-source procurement is subject to the approval of the authority, which shall act on the requests for approval without delay.
Failure to obtain the approval of the GPPA constitutes an offence under Section 69(1) of the Gambia Public Procurement Authority Act 2014. A person who violates this section is liable on conviction to a fine of not exceeding one million dalasis or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years or both the fine and imprisonment.
