EBOU  JALLOW AND THE QUESTION OF POLITICAL INTEGRITY                       

EBOU JALLOW asked What is political integrity ?  The answer is simple. It
became evident in  the answer given to a question i posed to the Secretary
of State  for Finance and Economic Affairs at the National Assembly . The
question reads : “Honourable  Speaker , would the Secretary Of State  For
Finance and Economic Affairs explain to  this  august body what is holding
up the annual reports of the Auditor  General to the National Assembly
since 1998; why there has  been no Auditor General's report covering the
years 1992  to 1997  and what is being done to ameliorate the situation?” 
The Secretary Of State responded as follows:
“Mr. Speaker sir, the delay in the  preparation and completion of Auditor
General’s  report since 1998 is  mainly  due  to administrative /structural
change, but we hope the outstanding matters will be resolved soon. 
It is important to note that the Auditor General sends his/her observations
after each audit  to the audited institution in the first instance  for
comments and necessary action .The report cannot be  finalised  if the
unresolved issues  are not verified. Mostly, it takes a very long time for
the audited institutions to respond to Auditor General’s Report.
These reports were supposed to be compiled at the end of each period, and
submitted to the National Assembly for deliberation by the Finance and
Public accounts committee. However this process is impaired by capacity
constraints as previously reported to the  National Assembly...” 
To make matters short, the Secretary of State promised that the reports
shall be finalised  and laid before the National Assembly by end of
December 2003 .
My answer is that accountability constitutes one of the pillars of
integrity of a system of public administration or public service. It is
incontrovertible that any government which fails to render accounts on its
finances is robbed of credibility and integrity; this is how matters stand.
Infact the first Accountant General who was unceremoniously removed from
office indicated in 1998 that she could not come up with a comprehensive
report because of the failure to present government  accounts. She summed
up the dangers of lack of accountability as follows: “the failure to
produce financial statements is a matter of grave concern as we are unable
to confirm the level of expenditure made or revenue collected by the
government, whether the government is operating a surplus or deficit, and
the overall indebtedness of the country.” Despite the inadequacy of  the
findings the Accountant General did  report on certain  trends of
mismanagement of resources such as lack of compliance with financial
instructions, theft of funds,  missing revenue and receipt books, lack of
supporting documents for expenditure, failure to obtain competitive
tenders, poor accounting records, etc. The then Accountant  General did not
give any breathing space. It was no surprise that they got rid of her. I 
guess any honest person can see that a government which fails to render
account since it came into office  cannot claim to  have integrity. I hope
my point is clear.
HALIFA SALLAH 





































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