Finance
Minister Mamburay Njie has requested for additional time from the National
Assembly’s Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) to submit the
expenditure breakdown of the 143 million dalasis that he announced last week.
Responding
to questions from members of the committee, Mamburay Njie also said the
government has received a soft loan of D1 billion from the International
Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mamburay
Njie told lawmakers the money was released to the Ministry of Health based on
their request from the D500 million of the covid-19 special fund.
He
said out of the D143 million, D100 million was given to the Health Ministry to
purchase an ambulance for the North Bank Region and medical equipment, while
the 43 million dalasis was spent on local expenses such as hotel accommodation,
feeding for the quarantined which he said were all itemised.
“The
D100 million is purposely and purely to supplement the money World Bank used to
procure an ambulance and medical equipment. In the process of the procurement
they realized that there is a deficit of D100 million.”
He
added that on top of the grants that was given to them, the D100 million which
is equivalent to $2 million was released for them to be able to complete the
purchase of the items based on the list that the Ministry of Health gave them.
“The
other D43 million are local expenses, hotel accommodations, feeding of the
quarantined people. It’s all itemised.”
The
Wuli West lawmaker, however, requested for the Finance minister to document the
reimbursements made and share it with the Assembly which he agreed to do by
Friday.
“The
accountant general has promised to make that available. The only fund that has
been released from our end is 143 million dalasis.”
Dilating
on the funds mobilised for the Health Ministry, Minister Njie said: “Out of the
D512 million, I gave a preliminary report on the impact of covid-19 and I said
the Health Ministry requested D12 million. At that time, we provided D4 million
to them and later D8 million. In addition to that D12 million, we also provided
the D500 million.”
Mamburay
Njie further told the FPAC committee that the D500 million was raised after
cutting from 24 budget entries, noting that up to now, they have not hit the
ceiling that parliament appropriated for expenditure, saying that this is why
they have to make sure that they do the reimbursement.
