By Bakary Touray Jr.
The Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs (MoFEA), Mr. Mambury Njie, has announced before the country’s oversight body that, the D500 Million COVID-19 Emergency Fund “is available and ready for disbursement”. The Finance chief was responding to numerous concerns raised on the issue by the lawmakers, on Friday at the National Assembly in Banjul where deputies deliberated on the motion for the extension of State of Public Emergency, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Njie informed the NAMs that the entire D500 million is for health, and assured that the committee would be looking at how they do the disbursement.
“It is demand-driven and there is below the line account and, right now, we have disbursed D12 million out of which the Health Ministry has spent D11 million,” he told the Assembly.
However, he disclosed that the Ministry is now making a request for D60 Million: this include the payment of hotels and D100,000 for each regional health teams. And, he added, “we are also making sure that all the procurement, internal auditing, verification is done”.
According to the Finance Minister, “As at now, they{Health} have not even touch the D500 million.”
He further told the lawmakers: “We are managing within the D21 billion that you gave us. We don’t want to expand and we also want to contain the inflation, fiscal deficit, otherwise we will come back to you for a Supplementary Appropriation Bill. This is a small vulnerable economy and whatever we do, we make sure that that fiscal discipline is there.”
Njie pointed that, “Otherwise, if we have any dislocation, everything will crumble and if I come to you for another supplementary appropriation bill, with another D21 billion, we cannot pay it in the midst of our revenue projection and the projection will go down”.
The MoFEA boss outlined that, in the event they need to give any compensation package to the vulnerable- including rice, oil and D1000 for every household- out of a total of 280,659 households, it will cost them D800 million; if they do 50 percent of the household, it would cost them D400 million; “if we do 40 percent, it will cost D320 million; and if we do 30 percent, it will cost us D240 million.”
The Finance and Economic Affairs Minister re-echoed that the D500 million is available, adding the total committed fund is D512 million. “Out of this, we have already disbursed D12 Million, but up to today, there is no single money coming from any donor,” he told the people’s representatives.
“We do have access to facilities at the IMF, but we are not using it now. The initial quota we have is about US$21 million that they will give us for five years interest free and everything that will help us, at least, cruising the exogenous shocks,” he informed.
“We have to be realistic, think about sustainability and the future. If we spend everything today and tomorrow, we are empty. We will appeal that give us time, we are managing with the limited resources we have; otherwise if there is any sign of dislocation, the entire country will go down,” the Minister cautioned.
