He added that this is because the priority allocation is to people-related matters and service delivery for Gambians to usher in development. “So on that note, we will say that the budget for 2025 has very low deficit compared to historic norms, which we have mentioned,” he said.
“And that is a huge achievement because if you look at all funds, our deficit is 1.46% and if you look at only government-funded operation, GLF component is 0.1%, which is quite a remarkable achievement and is taking into account of the fact that we do not want a light budget deficit which will encroach into borrowing more and more for our development needs.”
“What we have been hearing in all the discussions is our priority has always been centered around expenditure.”
“You know all the comments I have had so far in terms of analysing the budget and the discussions were to me sort of like not contextualised because you don't discuss budget numbers by only quoting absolute numbers,” he claimed.
“In terms of comparison, you look at how the trend has been moving over time, what is the share of the budget in terms of the distribution to different sectors, as well as the peer comparison, regional or otherwise.”
“The complaints we get from the public is mostly centered on what we have given one sector and another.”
“And further complaints are that; certain sectors are not adequately funded that they are not reflecting our priorities.”
He stressed that this is far from the reality. “Because to develop a budget, you start with a baseline and the baseline of any budget is your medium-term expenditure framework.”
By that, in a layman's term, it’s what resource envelope you have at your disposal that you can distribute to your priority areas, which you believe will usher in the development aspiration you want as a government. And when that is done, it cascades into allocation to sectors. And in so doing, you take cognisance of support that you get so as not to crowd out your limited government funds into areas which are very simple, and have a lot of donor funds.”
“But the feedback we got is that, particularly on productive sectors, mainly fisheries, agriculture, tourism, are under-invested. Unfortunately, this is far from reality, because each of these sectors has access to resource envelope that we as government are aware.”
“The agricultural sector has more than D5 billion support in form of grants from partners, from IFAD, World Bank, ADB, IDB, OPEC fund. So if you have that, and most of the support in the agricultural sector are grant funds, that is why we take that on board, and fully cognisant of that fact, we support the agricultural sector from our limited government resources to the tune of D950 million.
He underscored that this goes to other ministries like Tourism and Health among other departments.
He also stated that there are certain sectors that are not easily attracted to partners or funders.
