By: Kebba AF Touray
The National Assembly on Monday 25th October 2021 made extra allocations of over D17 million to some government entities during the consideration and approval of the 2022 estimates by the committee of the whole house.
The said entities included the ministries of agriculture and trade, National Health Insurance, National Population Secretariat and the Personnel Management Office (PMO).
“Ministry of Agriculture was reallocated D5 million (for its five sub vented institutions), PMO D2.5 million (for training), National Population Secretariat D2.5 million, Trade Ministry D6 Million and National Health Insurance D2,995000,” said Kebba K Barrow, Committee Chairman.
The said reallocations were aimed at enhancing the said entities to effectively discharge their duties and functions as mandated by their various regulations.
Shortly after the considerations and reallocations by the committee of the whole house, the Minister of Finance reported that the 2022 estimates have gone through the committee of the whole house and thus moved for the said estimates to be approved with the amendments made during the consideration and approval stages.
Subsequently, the assembly adjourned the sitting to Thursday 28th October 2021, for the Finance Minister, Mambury Njie to deliver the budget speech.
Photo: Minister Njie
During the speech, the minister will provide an update on the 2022 fiscal year.
Earlier during the debate on the consolidated report of FPAC, the Member for Tallinding, Fatoumatta Jawara, said D90 million was allocated to the education sector for the scholarship of Gambian students abroad, but she said the sector still needs an additional allocation of D10.
She said: “We should tab from the savings made from the estimates and adjust it for the sector to meet their needs.”
She said the sector needed D100 million.
She added: “We rely more on donors for technical input in the education sector and to do away with that, we need to invest more in our education sector.”
“We also need to adjust the allocation to the health sector, because many Gambians are crying over lack of drugs at the health facilities. Therefore, we need to adjust the allocation to the sector to address the problems of inadequate drugs and equipment confronting the sector,” Jawara added.
