By: Kebbab AF Touray
The Gambia’s Finance Minister, Seedy Keita, has told the country’s lawmakers that total revenue and grants for the revised fiscal year 2022 is projected to reach D26.6 billion.
Minister Keita said this at the national assembly while laying the revised budget before deputies on Thursday, July 28, 2022 for scrutiny, consideration, and approval.
“Total revenue and grant for the revised fiscal year 2022 is projected to reach D26.6 billion (about 11 percent decline compared to the approved budget of 2022). The decline in the revised budget is mostly on account of poor performance in tax, non-tax and budget support grants,” he said.
He added that the lower performance in non-tax revenue of D1.47 billion is mostly related to lower than programmed non-tax revenue from the petroleum sector for 2022.
“Project grants are projected to remain unchanged at D9.66 billion, whilst program grants are estimated to decline to D1.1 billion in the revised budget compared to D2.6 billion as per the approved 2022 budget,” Minister Keita said.
“This downward revision is explained primarily by the D1.6 billion expected in the budget support from the European Union and African Development Bank. As a result, the 2022 revised budget only factors budget support to the time of D1.1 billion from the World Bank.”
Minister Keita also explained that total expenditure and net-lending is revised from the approved estimates of D32.2 billion in 2022 to D31.1 billion for the revised budget of the 2022 fiscal year, representing a decline of D3.4 percent, whereas personnel emolument expenditures on the other hand are projected to increase from D5.1 billion to D5.7 billion.
This, he said, is accounting for an additional personnel cost of D575.8 million and that the increase in personnel emolument is mainly as a result of the increase in basic salary of civil servants.
“Expenditure is estimated to decline from D11.3 billion to D10.6 billion by the end of the fiscal year, representing a decline of 6.7 percent (D761.3 million). This is mainly as a result of cuts in goods and services and transfers on the budget balances of MDAs,” Minister Keita said.
Similarly, he said the capital expenditure (GLF and externally financed), is also expected to fall from D12.1 billion to D12.0 billion, a D116.3 million(1 percent) decline compared to the approved 2022 budget.
He also told lawmakers that external financing remains broadly unchanged; however, domestic financing through domestic borrowing has increased to D4.2 billion in the revised budget from D2.5 billion in the approved budget.
“This represents an increase of D1.7 billion in domestic borrowing coming from the ECF on lending to support the revenue shocks from the Russia-Ukraine war. Capital revenue also increased by D385 million in the revised budget, reaching D1.4 billion (37.9 percent increase) from D1.0 billion in the approved 2022 budget. This is mostly on account of a better –than-expected offer price for the sale of MEGA Bank,” Minister Keita told lawmakers.
