By: Hadram Hydara
Shortly after The Fatu Network published IMF’s disbursement of over 6 million dollars to the Gambia, Momodou Sabally, former Gambia Secretary General and head of Civil Service and now Campaign Manager of the opposition United Democratic Party, has assailed Finance Minister, Seedy Keita, over what he called his “outright desire to mislead the public”, following the minister’s interview with West Coast radio’s Peter Gomez on the IMF’s approval of a credit facility for the Gambia.
Sabally believes the over $6 million approved by IMF is too small to make a difference for the Gambia and since the programme comes with a waiver “for non-observance of the continuous performance criterion on the accumulation of new external payment arrears by the central government”, the minister should neither be proud nor happy about it.
Mr. Sabally, who is an expert in economics, said the country’s finance minister has put the country’s economy on a nosedive, with abysmal leadership.
“Just what is there to celebrate when this same Finance Minister who woefully failed in his previous portfolio as trade minister, wrecked our economy to an unprecedented level of inflation at 17.4 per cent?
“He brought us negative real interest rates that will lead to a further depreciation of the Dalasi against the currencies of our major trading partners, among other negative ramifications,” Sabally said, adding:
“His leadership of the nation’s macroeconomic team has brought loss upon loss for depositors of funds in the local money market; as well as the loss for traders in the foreign exchange market”.
He further criticized the minister for his involvement in raising the National Water and Electricity (NAWEC) tariffs, saying he believes raising the tariffs was meant to partially fulfil the IMF loan. He added that the minister does not actually care about the plight of Gambians.
“Seedy Keita does not care about the suffering of the Gambian masses arising from this terrible hike in cash power and water costs. Seedy is not bothered about the pervasive effects of this NAWEC tariff hike, especially its impact on inflation and general macroeconomic instability”.
Sabally believes the impact of the finance minister’s decisions on the economy will only yield negative outcomes that will be suffered for generations.
“The impact of Seedy’s decisions on the economy will be suffered by generations yet unborn as the Central Bank begins the raising of policy rates in trying to curb inflation.
“This will further worsen our domestic debt burden as local enterprises find it ever harder to borrow funds for investment.
“Our chronic youth unemployment problem is going to be even worse as life becomes more and more treacherously difficult in this country.” The already apparent economic dualism will worsen, thereby leading to higher crime rates and social instability.”
