By Omar Bah
The Minister of Finance and Economic Finance, Amadou Sanneh has said that the fleet of expensive vehicles at the State House and the three airplanes bought by former President Yahya Jammeh have been put on sale.
Speaking to journalists yesterday at the Ministry of Finance conference room, Sanneh said his ministry will soon start publicizing the sales of the cars and the airplanes.
“We are doing something to construct our website where we will publish these things. We are also contacting people who will help us disseminate the information,” he explained.
On the joint press conference with IMF, Minister Sanneh said: “We have programs with the IMF and World Bank to assist the Gambia to face its challenges and a lot of it has been legacy issues from the past regime.”
He said the country is going through very difficult challenges “and we do not have enough resources to meet the challenges, especially in health, education and agriculture. More importantly is the Billion Dollar debt that we inherited from the former regime.”
Vehicle policy
He said the vehicle policy which was passed by the national assembly is suspended by the office of the president until June but they are having discussions and engagements with the Office of the President and cabinet and the conclusion is that all the ministries should come and determine what vehicle fleet size each ministry should hold.
“But the idea of giving officials from deputy permanent secretary downward vehicles to run freely will have to be eliminated because the government vehicle policy allows only the minister and the PS to be issued vehicles,” he said.
The Minister said they inherited from a government that was giving cars to everybody. “If the policy is implemented the junior staff from DPS down will receive D1000 transport allowance monthly. We also have budgeted D50M as staff vehicle loans which they can apply to own their own cars,” he concluded.
