Minister Joof explained that while the policy aims to reduce unemployment and create 150,000 decent and sustainable jobs by 2026, his Ministry currently lacks a functional system to track employment data in real time. “We don’t have the numbers.”
“For 60 years, we have not had a mechanism to count how many workers we have,” he admitted candidly. “We were always estimating. A survey is an estimate in most cases. We are now developing a system that will count one, two, three, four, five. But for now, I cannot give you a figure. That would be misleading.”
Hon. Abdoulie Njie, reading further questions on behalf of Banjul North, pressed: “Does that mean that probably we kind of rushed the policy? Shouldn’t these mechanisms have been in place first? It’s like we put the cart before the horse.”
The Minister pushed back strongly. “The setting of a target in a policy is demonstrating government’s determination,” he said. “If we were to wait for a mechanism to be in place to count unemployment, by now we would have still had no policy. Government had to act first, then work backwards to fix the gaps.”
Hon. Bakary Badjie of Foni Bintang Karanai bluntly pointed out: “You said you cannot actually give us even a small figure, an estimate. Yet this policy is targeting 150,000 jobs. So when will we actually get the figures?”
The Minister stood his ground, arguing that giving any random number would be a betrayal of his oath of office. “I will not mislead the Assembly. I could easily throw around numbers from the Gambia Revenue Authority or Social Security, but that would be unfair to the state. We must be patient until the tracking system is developed.”
He revealed that his Ministry is working with the United Nations Centre for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on a digital business registration platform, and with local ICT firms such as Insist Global and GISCO to build software capable of tracking jobs in real time.
“Once deployed, this system will capture employment data from public and private sectors, as well as MSMEs,” Joof assured. “Only then will government be able to give regular, reliable updates to this Assembly.”
For now, however, he conceded that the Ministry can only rely on costly and infrequent labour force surveys the latest of which has been completed but not yet validated.
Hon. Joof highlighted that “The policy was necessary. It was a signal that government is serious about tackling unemployment and underemployment. Now we are building the tools to track progress. But I will not guess numbers just to please anyone.”
With just one year left before the policy expires in 2026, members are worried the ambitious promise of 150,000 jobs may remain just that: a promise.
