"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:

“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.”

-BambaLaye

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