By Omar Bah
Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Mambury Njie has yesterday tabled D22.1 billion government estimate, recurrent and expenditure for the Fiscal Year 2021 for consideration and approval by the National Assembly.
The budget estimate represents about 33.3 percent increase from the previous year.
In 2019, the government spent a total of D15.1 billion but by December 21, 2020, the total government expenditure for the year would reach D22.1 billion.
The Finance Minister said all the expenditure sub-components have increased significantly during the course of the year.
He said during the formulation of the budget, Covid-19 remains as the single most important parameter and challenge to the country’s development.
“Preliminary analysis of the microeconomic impact of the pandemic on the Gambian economy indicates that there is a significant slowdown in GDP growth, decline in tax revenue and increase in health expenditure as well as multi threshold on the 2020 budget,” he said.
He said based on the shocks related to the closure of all the country’s entry points and the lack of tourism related activities, which have collectively crippled the tourism sector and stifle economic activities throughout the country.
“In essence domestic growth rate for 2021 has been revised downward from 6.3% to negative 1.5% with an anticipated 3% of GDP loss in tax revenue for the fiscal year. This is a significant decline from the 6.2% GDP growth rate in 2019 … to make matters more worrisome, these estimates are expected to further wind if the spread of the virus worsened in the coming few months in a manner similar to the second wave,” he said.
He said the slowdown of growth globally remains a concern for The Gambia.
