Minister Keita made these remarks on Friday night at the Mansa Kunda Ministerial Town Hall meeting held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara Conference Centre in Bijilo. The meeting was organised by Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, the minister for Information with its objectives to enhance relevant sharing of the ongoing developments undertaken by the government with the public.
With the National Development Plan, he said that an optimistic funding scenario of the plan is estimated at US$3.498 billion, noting that currently available resource is estimated at US$734 million, with a funding gap of US$2.764 billion. He said 27.2% is for human capital, whilst 32% of the funding gap is for energy.
Talking about the government’s Development Partner Engagement (DPE), the finance minister said that the MCC- Compact Programme is at its development stage, around $300 million, a constraint analysis has been conducted and that two key constraints to economic growth which includes human capital development (skills development) and efficient River transport have been selected.
The engagement includes Department of Agriculture School Feeding Programme, Biden Malaria Initiative, USA Aid, and Peace Corp to support private sector development, saying that government has secured a line of financing facility of US$50 million from BADEA to support the importation of essential and strategic commodities.
“The Gambia portfolio from the IDA group has doubled to US$750 million – driven mainly by improvements in our CPIA rating and the development and implementation of the TAA strategy. IDB portfolio grew manifold ADB, EU,” he informed.
Minister Keita continued that the budget support from the IDA Group has more than doubled in recent years reaching US$40 million. He noted that The Gambia successfully completed the IMF ECF programme for the first time in 2023.
He said “marking a start of a new ECF Programme in the same year with a financial package of US$98.7 million for a period of 38 months. The first review of the current programme has successfully been completed and approved by the IMF board this week with a disbursement of US$10.95 million.”
Discussing further on the robust fiscal policy reforms, he said that the reform was also designed to encourage private sector participation in public service delivery, adding that the government would introduce the Public Private Partnership (PPP) bill to the National Assembly for enactment.
He advanced that the new PPP concessions have been signed with Africa50 and Albarak in the areas of asset recycling and port development respectively.
According to the minister, this is to reduce fiscal risk from SoEs; the government passed the SoE Act, established an SoE Commission with the objective of improving governance, operational and financial performance of SoEs.
