By Omar Bah
Finance Minister Seedy Keita has confirmed that the government is now receiving budget support from partners to fund various initiatives.
In November, Minister Keita told the National Assembly that the government is seriously challenged in implementing the 2024 national budget because there was no substantial budget support from development partners.
“This year is an exceptional year of challenges in terms of implementing the budget. We had shocks on all sides of the budget, the expenditure and revenue sides, and the combination of that was a very difficult balancing act we have to play,” the minister had said.
But addressing journalists on the issue at a recent press conference organised by the GRA, Minister Keita said budget supports have now started coming.
“Until November last year, we had been relying on our own resources, which has been unprecedented. In these eleven months of the year, we have expenditure shocks like the D20 million support to Nawec, and this government did deliberately to make sure that the rates of the electricity do not go up. We also went into financing 99 percent of the OIC operations from our own domestic resources when partner donors were not forthcoming,” he said.
Taxation
Reacting to claims that the GRA is overtaxing, Minister Keita said Gambia’s taxation is below the African average.
“And when even compared to that of our development partners, their tax revenue ratio to GDP is 35 percent…We are threefold below what those levels are, so what we are doing is focusing on enhancing compliance. By that, we mean bringing into the tax net those transactions that had been left out. So when people are saying they are going to overtax. No. Overtaxed would be a direct reflection of your tax rates, but no tax rate increases have been made,” he said.
Minister Keita said the GRA has realised significant improvement in the areas of fuel following the introduction of the fuel marking.
“In four months, GRA has realised an increase of almost D900 million compared to last year when the transaction sizes are the same. What that means is that activities that were supposed to have been taxed but were not taxed are now coming to the tax net. For example, if you look at rental income, that is an area we know what the compliance level is and the economic activity. So we are broadening the tax base and blocking linkages through digitalisation,” he noted.
