By Omar Bah
The National Assembly Member for Upper Saloum, Alhagie Mbow, has vowed to ask the Finance and Public Accounts Committee to summon the Central Bank Governor to answer questions over what his office has been doing to address the depreciation of the Gambian dalasi.
Addressing the Assembly during the adjournment debate of the second ordinary session on Wednesday, Honourable Mbow said: “Honourable Speaker, there should be a complete strategy, and I think I will encourage our committee (FPAC) to summon the CBG Governor here to tell us what they are doing in controlling the foreign exchange because whatever they are doing is not working.”
The CBG, he added, is responsible for monetary policy, but the area is not working and needs to be looked at because The Gambia is one of the few countries where “you can work in any bank and open a foreign currency account.”.
“The Gambia is also one of the few countries where you can work in any corner and find people doing foreign exchange. What is happening? We need to put policies and regulations in place to stop that,” he said.
He added: “Honourable Speaker, when you go to the black market now to change foreign currency, they will give you a better rate compared to the banks. The question is, for the people who are buying these currencies in the black market, where are they taking the money? Of course, they take it to the bank, and some of them are doing cash shipments, and the Central Bank of the Gambia must be interested to know where that money is coming from. Is it drug money? Is it laundered? Where is the money coming from?”
“Honourable Speaker, if you go outside of this country, you will know the difficulties people face to even change a $100, but here, if you go to any market, you can change. That is not correct. We must bring sanity into the system because the dalasi is depreciating, and that means we would have to pay more to import commodities, which would in turn affect the prices of commodities in the country,” he said.
Honourable Mbow also criticised the uncontrolled nature of the country’s forex bureaux.
“They are even more than the schools, so we need to bring the Central Bank in order to tell them that their regulations are not working and they need to give us something better so that we can arrest the situation,” he said.
Budget
The NRP NAM also expressed disaffection over the lack of value for money in the country’s budget allocation, arguing that all future allocations of funds to ministries and government institutions should be based on results.
“We must henceforth look at the budgets of the various ministries and institutions and support areas that are results-oriented,” he said.
Drugs
Mbow also urged the Assembly to find a strategy to help DLEAG in the fight against drugs.
He said the issue of drugs, even at the level of the African Union, is considered a critical issue.
“We just came from an AU meeting, and I think that was one of the issues that we raised. We also discussed what we could do to help address the issue. Back home, when you look at the updates from DLEAG, all the time they tell us they are arresting people here and there, but for me, I think we need to look at what DELAG actually needs to fight against these people, whether by land or sea. Let us give them what they need to be able to fight because we cannot allow these drug dealers to destroy our population. We cannot do that,” he said.
