Africa-Press – Gambia. The chairman of the National Assembly Finance and Public Accounts Committee Alagie S Darboe, has questioned senior officials of the main hospital,the EFSTH, for not acting on an audit recommendation to terminate the services of senior procurement officer Kumba Jatta.
Auditors accused her of allegedly misrepresenting her qualifications by claiming membership of two professional accounting bodies which was found to be false.
In his explanations, the Chief Medical Director at ESFTH Mustapha Bittaye informed lawmakers that his management had confronted Jatta over the matter and she has not presented any evidence of her membership into these two bodies and does not have the qualifications.
“Management agreed with the recommendation to terminate her services however we only sent her on administrative leave pending the final determination of her case by the police”, Dr Bittaaye told NAMs.
However Chairman Darboe informed CMD Bittaye that police has no business in the termination since that is purely a management matter, but Bittaye said unless the investigation is concluded, management cannot take actions.
NAM Fatou Cham of Sanementereng asked the EFSTH management to clarify if it will take responsibility for recovering all the salaries paid to the staff since she was not qualified for the position in the first place.
Dr Bittaye replied that management will take that responsibility since ‘we do not want to rush to avoid doing anything that may violate her rights.’
“That position should not have even existed. It was an anomaly by the previous management but we take full responsibility” Dr Bittaye said.
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