Thursday 04/11/9 
MORE FRAUD IN THE GAMBIA’S FOREIGN MISSIONS ABROAD

The National assembly Finance and Public Accounts committee report on the Auditor General’s report of December, 1998, presently before the National Assembly, has revealed a massive misuse of funds and corruption in The Gambia’s foreign missions abroad. 

The fraud has been discovered in the United states - New York Permanent Mission, where the report found out that $20,764 (D215,947) was withdrawn from The Gambian permanent mission’s account in New York but no evidence of authority for it could be produced. The auditors were said to have reported the matter to the department of state for Foreign Affairs but no investigation was carried out and no bank reconciliation was carried out either. 

The mission was also reported to be using an "unauthorised receipt books purchased locally..." However, that anomaly has been corrected, the report indicated, among other corruption and fraudulent revelations that took place in the mission and Washington embassy since the past years. There were also some fraudulent discoveries in the London, Dakar High Commissions and Guinea Bissau Conculate.

The 77-page report prepared by nine-member Finance and Public Accounts Committee headed by Speaker MB Wadda covered the period August 1994 to December 1998.