The National Audit Office (NAO) has reported that the Gambia Government has signed a contract worth US$3.9 Million for the purchase of ambulances and other medical equipment from Turkey.
The nation’s audit body revealed this in its report tabled before the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the legislature in the capital city, Banjul. NAO dissected in its said audited report on Government COVID19 Response (procurement and distribution of food and medical items) that the contract was conducted using World Bank guidelines.
But it added: “However, only one supplier as invited to supply these items, and it later became clear that other suppliers stated that they were able to satisfy the contract for between US$1.2 million and US$1.7 million less.”
The report indicated it’s hard to justify the said single source arrangement due to an emergency as, while the contract was signed on 8th April, 2020, the equipment only arrived in the Gambia on 20th July, 2020.
“In addition, the cost of transporting the equipment by air was over US$666,000. If it was sent by sea, costs are estimated to be over US$500,000 less”, remarked the NAO.
It also stated that if the items had been sent shortly after the contract had been signed, they would have arrived earlier than they did, even by sea.
According to office, full needs assessment is a critical first stage of any procurement ensuring that goods\services procured are required, properly specified and to focus the procurement process to achieve maximum value for money.
“In the context of the Government of the Gambia COVID19 response, such assessments would have helped to determine areas where intervention was urgently required, identify specific requirement for these interventions and assess the extent of funding required,” the Committee members were informed.
Unfortunately, NAO said across the various procurements of medical and food items, no such needs assessments were performed, and as such, it resulted in the poor utilization of financial resources as procurement of some equipment was not considered to be of urgent need and, therefore, deprived funds from being used in other priority areas.
“The audit also noted instances of noncompliance with financial and procurement regulations. This includes the use of single sourcing without Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA) approval, processing of payments without attaching the required documents and missing documents, such as delivery notes to accompany food items to distribution centers”, it disclosed.
The Audit Office further noted that contracts that required to be sourced through open tender were in fact, awarded through the request for quotation procedure, and it found instances where contracts were not awarded to the lowest bidders, without any adequate explanation.
“Aside from the issue of legal compliance, failure to adhere to these requirements is likely to have meant that full value for money has not been achieved and that public money has been wasted”, members of the FPAC heard.
