Minister Sillah Defends Ministry Over D377 Million Audit Findings, Says “Auditors Too Can Be Wrong”

By Makutu Manneh

Ebrima Sillah, Minister of Transport, Works, and Infrastructure, has questioned aspects of a recent audit report implicating his ministry in a D377 million discrepancy, asserting that “to audit does not necessarily mean it is a Bible or Quran—they too can have it wrong.”

Speaking on Coffee Time with Peter Gomez, Minister Sillah said while audits play an important role in promoting accountability, they are not immune to error. He challenged the credibility of the report’s findings, which alleged that the ministry could not account for D377 million in a road construction project.

“I don’t want to fault anybody here, but I can tell you that D377 million is a lot of money to disappear, and if this was going to be a very good audit job, I would have expected that the auditor could have sent some of his people to verify on the ground whether the entire money was spent only on 38 kilometers,” Sillah said.

Minister Sillah further acknowledged that there is significant room for improvement in audit processes. He explained that this was the reason his ministry issued a statement clarifying that what is trending in the media and widely shared on social platforms is inaccurate and does not reflect the facts or evidence available to them.

“You know, there are people in this country who don’t want us to be talking about this audit report because they think we are all guilty as charged. That they should be having a field day all over,” he said.

He specifically named Madi Jobarteh and Dr. Gajigo, adding, “You have some so-called activists who have now turned into politicians and some intellectuals who have made it their business to always criticize everything that the government is doing, but we know they are now politicians.”

The ministry maintained that the government has nothing to conceal regarding the audit report but insisted it would not seek approval from critics to defend itself against corruption allegations.

Minister Sillah stressed that in 2020, the ministry signed a contract to construct 38 kilometers of roads in the North Bank Region. During the project’s implementation, further consultations with local communities identified the need to extend the work to ensure comprehensive coverage.

As a result, an addendum was issued, adding 16.5 kilometers to the project and incurring additional costs. The minister expressed surprise that the audit report did not take these facts into account, despite detailed explanations provided by the ministry. He described the audit process as fallible and said the report’s conclusions were “grossly misleading and patently false.”

“I was really shocked and surprised that this basic fact was not taken into consideration when the audit report was finalized,” he added.

He explained that the auditors may have considered their responses too late, as the report may already have been finalized, or they may have deemed the information insufficiently material to alter the findings.

“Most of these things can be time-bound, but that does not mean that there was a discrepancy,” he added.