Budget Speeches used to be Statements of Government Policy
going into the new fiscal year, and a review of preceding years’ performance,
in words and figures, but primarily in words.
The numbers portion of the process is contained in the Budget Estimates. In both cases, however, budget implementation
benchmarks served as measures of past, present and future performance. It was also a place to announce new policy
measures. That was then, this is now.
We've combed through the Finance Minister's 42-page 2014 Budget Speech,
and found nothing of substance except the regurgitation of the regime’s repeated
promises to donors that it will be more fiscally responsible in the coming
year. It never does and we have
demonstrated year after year that this regime has no intention of holding down
domestic borrowing to a manageable or sustainable level because there is no one
in The Gambia who will challenge the insatiable demands of Jammeh to satisfy his
personal comfort and safety at the expense of everyone else. He coughs, everybody jumps.
The brevity and inanity of the speech was an inevitability
because of the casual treatment of important sectors of the economy received
from the Hon. Minister was designed to conceal the fact that the 2014 Budget
was no different from the last. For
example, the entire agriculture sector was treated to a 4-sentence 2-paragraph
statement, and no mention of the groundnut sub-sector, the biggest foreign
exchange earner. The energy and petroleum
sectors received a couple of sentences each, and nothing on exploration except
to tell Gambians that the National Petroleum Company built several petrol
stations at the cost of over a million dollars.
Who really cares? Government
should not be in the business of retailing petrol in the first instance.
Gambia's foreign policy was treated to a whole sentence
about the strategic interests of Gambia, and not a word about the fiscal impact,
if any, the withdrawal would have following the withdrawal from the Commonwealth. Nothing also on the severance of diplomatic
relations with Taiwan and the budgetary implications of such an asinine move
WILL have, and consequently, what adjustments are called for and their
budgetary implications.
GPA, NAWEC, SSHFC, GAMTEL and the other government
parastatals were not treated individually, and nothing was said of their financial
performance over the 2013 fiscal year, and certainly nothing about going
forward with these bankrupt companies that are an obvious drag on the budget
and the economy. Since it is not a
pretty story, the Finance Minister conveniently ignored them. Gambians would have liked to hear from their government
about plans to replace the decrepit Banjul – Barra ferries or the ‘floating
coffins’ for short in which they are forced to travel in crossing the 7
nautical mile stretch each day to get to and from work or to the market
place. Heavy-duty Senegalese trucks that
had to make a detour to the Bamba Tenda – Yelli Tenda crossing are now faced
with another set of problems of having to pay in foreign currency, a policy
that went into effect without notice resulting in boycotts of the ferry
services by truck drivers. The budget
speech would have been an appropriate place to notify users in advance, but
that is too much to ask of a regime that seem to get a kick out of inflicting
pain on its citizens as well as its neighbors.
It is not until you get to the annexes, especially the pie
charts, that one begins to see what the budget narrative tried to conceal. This regime, as I have said in earlier posts,
intends to continue to pursue its failed policies of spending disproportionate
amount of our taxes on the security of one man through the President's Office
and allied security agencies, primarily Defense and Interior Ministries, at the
expense of agriculture, trade, employment, health, social welfare and the development of the
Gambian youth. The pie charts clearly
confirm our suspicions, no matter how hard the folks at the Finance Ministry tried to conceal the evidence in their presentations. Again, Ministers and officials in the civil service will
continue to dance to the tune of a dictator who has little or no regard for the
general welfare of Gambians. And until
he's gotten rid off and soon, the budget will continue to reflect his wishes
and those of his business associates, and not those of the Gambian taxpayer.
