Bambalaye:

In lay man's term, they cooked the books.

Musa Jeng
>
> From: Gambia Talk <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2005/09/10 Sat PM 12:19:09 EDT
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Abysmal Controls At CBG - Auditor's Disclaimer
>
> "The Executive Directors urged the authorities, during the Article IV
> consultation in 2004, to commission a reaudit of the Central Bank of The
> Gambia's (CBG's) 2001 and 2002 financial statements on terms of reference
> agreed with Fund staff. The Directors also stressed the need for a special
> audit of foreign exchange transactions between 2000 and 2003. These audits
> have now been completed and confirm the breakdown of internal controls at
> the central bank that were observed during the IMF's Safeguard Assessment
> mission conducted in November 2003.
>
> THE AUDIT REPORTS RESTATE GENERAL LEDGER BALANCES FOR EXTERNAL RESERVES
> FOR VARIOUS TEST DATES BETWEEN END-DECEMBER 2000 AND END-DECMBER 2003,
> WHICH ARE SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER THAN THE ORIGINALLY RECORDED BALANCES. THE
> AUDITORS HAVE ISSUED A DISCLAIMER INDICATING THAT THEY WERE UNABLE TO
> EXPRESS AN OPINION ON THE 2001 AND 2002 ACCOUNTS LARGELY BECAUSE OF LACK
> OF DOCUMENTATION SUPPORTING SEVERAL FOREIGN EXCHANGE TRANSACTIONS."
>
> In my line of work, if I have to issue a disclaimer on an audit, the next
> thing that follows is a criminal investigation - I mean guns and badges.
> Clearly, for the auditors reviewing the forex transactions of the Central
> Bank to have issued a disclaimer, it must have been pretty ugly out there.
> I mean how would the central bank governor account for all those bags of
> foriegn currency allegedly handed out to Baba Jobe, Lang Conteh  and their
> boys. Simply put, the forex looted from our coffers could not be accounted
> for by the auditors, so they had to issue a disclaimer. This is very sad
> indeed.
>
> For those interested, an auditr's disclaimer will go like this:
>
> &#8220;Since the Central Bank of The Gambia did not exercise any accounting
> controls over the collections and disbursements of foriegn currencies and
> we were not able to apply other auditing procedures to satisfy ourselves
> as to the amount of foreign currencies, the scope of our work was not
> sufficient to enable us to express, and we do not express, an opinion on
> these financial statements.&#8221;
>
> -BambaLaye
>
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