The Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Amadou Sanneh has today moved the ‘Appropriation Act (Amendment) Bill 2017’which is a presentation of The Government’s budget to the National Assembly in Banjul.
“I would like to submit for consideration and approval by the National Assembly the Revised Estimates of Revenues, Recurrent and Development Expenditures for the Fiscal years 2017,” Minister of Finance Amadou Sanneh stated.
Minister Sanneh said it is a constitutional requirements for the president to instruct the Minister of Finance to prepare and submit to the National Assembly at least 30 days before the end of each Financial Year, the Estimates of Revenues and Expenditures of The Gambia for the following year. He said the estimates shall be submitted directly to the President by the Chief Justice or any other authority for presentation by the President to the National Assembly. He added that the National Assembly needs to appoint, temporarily or permanently, a small core of technical staff to assist in gathering information, making research and analysis on issues pertinent to its deliberations and resolutions on the Budgets submitted to it by the Minister.
“Honourable Speaker, with a new Government in place, and renewed enthusiasm, we are submitting a revised budget to this parliament in order to address the dire macro-economic situation this administration has inherited,” he asserted.
Minister Sanneh highlighted the economic casualties inherited from the former government which includes an abuse of State-Owned Enterprises like GAMTEL, SSHFC, NAWEC, etc, through the embezzlement of funds to the tune of D4.7 Billion within a space of 3 years. He spoke about 9.0 Billion debt portfolio for NAWEC with aging fleet of generators and unsustainable operational cost. He spoke about the poor agricultural policy, siphoning of royalties from the mining sub-sector and purchase of 44 pickup vehicles by the government for APRC party in 2011.
He also talked about the depletion of the domestic foreign reserves to less than 2 months of future imports together with a ballooning of public debt from 83.3 percent to 120.3 percent of GDP between 2013 and 2016.
Meanwhile, the motion was seconded by Honourable Kebba K. Barrow, Majority Leader and Member for Kombo South. The National Assembly Finance Committee is expected to research and analyze issues pertinent to its deliberation and resolutions on the Budgets submitted by the honorable Minister.
