A National Assembly committee has called for the Mayor of Banjul to repay more than D1.1m spent from an EU-funded city project on media coverage and other expenses linked to her town-hall meetings.

The Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the National Assembly made the recommendation after examining the National Audit Office's special audit of the Banjul-Ostende EU project covering the period from January 2020 to April 2024. This demand contained in the report was also approved by the National Assembly. Foroyaa understands that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs has written to both the Banjul City Council and the Inspector General of the Gambia Police Force (GPF) concerning the FPAC and audit findings. The people concerned have all been written to, including the mayor. The Ministry has informed the IGP to open an investigation into people who fail to meet the deadline.

The recent move comes in a view to complying with audit recommendations and parliamentary decisions.

The committee said D1,108,500 from project funds was spent on

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media coverage and other expenses for the Mayor's town-hall meetings held in 2022. The committee said the spending was not included in the approved project budget. It recommended that the Mayor repay the full amount to Banjul City Council within 45 days of tabling the report, and submit evidence of repayment to the committee for verification.

The finding places the Mayor's town hall spending at the centre of

a much wider examination of how money under the Banjul-Ostende project was managed. The project is a partnership involving Banjul and the Belgian city of Ostend. The wider City Link programme has focused on areas including local government capacity, waste management, health, environmental work and sustainable development.

The FPAC report does not treat the town hall spending as an

isolated matter. It records a series of other findings involving senior

officials, project staff, contractors and suppliers.

At the centre of the committee's findings is the question of

whether project money was used only for activities that were approved and properly documented.

The committee said the D1,108,500 spent on the Mayor's town-hall

meetings was outside the approved project budget. The money covered media coverage and other expenses connected to the meetings in 2022. The committee's recommendation is direct: the Mayor should repay the full amount within 45 days after the report is tabled and provide evidence to the committee.

The report does not say that the town-hall meetings themselves did

not take place. But the parliamentary committee's concern was how the project money was used to support the meetings. The committee said the expenditure was not part of the approved project budget. It therefore recommended that the amount be returned to the council.