By: Bakary Touray Jr
Hon. Sidia Jatta, the PDOIS National Assembly Member (NAM) for Wuli West who doubles as Vice Chairperson of the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the legislature, has disclosed that the Gambia has a budget deficit of Six billion (D6 billion).
He made the disclosure recently, while presenting the consolidated reports of FPAC before the House, after their engagement with the stakeholders of the various government ministries, agencies and departments.
The Wuli West NAM continued: “Pursuant to section 81(1) and 84(1) and (2) of the Standing Orders, committees of the National Assembly are mandated to make such inquires and recommendations on the draft estimates of the revenue and expenditure and submit their reports to FPAC, to lay a consolidated report on the draft estimates together with a motion for its debate.”
Jatta reported that the consolidated report incorporates the recommendations of FPAC and various committees following their review of the draft estimates, detail reports and recommendations of the various committees on the draft estimates. He further informed the assembly that FPAC met with senior officers of the National Audit Office (NAO), Judiciary, IEC, National Assembly and the Ombudsman.
He disclosed that the National Assembly approved D112,000,001 in 2020 for the NAO, but in 2021 it’s requesting a total budget of D208,168,870, and that the FPAC recommended D128,168,870.
“The Judiciary was allocated with D170,000,000 in 2020, [and it] requested for D261,871,775 in 2021 but FPAC recommended D181,871,775. And the IEC was allocated D52000,000, requested for D581,150,402 and FPAC recommended D314,150,402,” the NAM informed his colleagues.
Considering the limited resources envelop, coupled with D6 billion budget deficits, the FPAC resolves and recommends to the Assembly for the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Gambia for the fiscal year 2021 to be amended by FPAC,” Hon. Jatta added.
The lawmaker went on to state that, the reason for the reductions they have made on the budget lines of some institutions such as the Office of the President in the tune of D36 million, was to reduce the 2020 budget deficit to a manageable size and amount.
After over 28 hours of intensive debate and scrutiny of the said estimate, the National Assembly finally approved a total budget of D29,099,660.00 for the Gambia, for the fiscal year 2021.
