It has been reported in the local newspapers that the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs recently tabled the budget for the 2025 fiscal year before deputies in the National Assembly. The budget is one of the most important documents in a democracy as it outlines the income and expenditure for the following year.
This is why it is expected that wide consultations should be embarked upon prior to its preparation and tabling before deputies for scrutiny. Every department and sector in the country is tasked to estimate its needs for the coming year so that the consolidated one will be presented by the minister.
According to initial reports, there are some increments in the projected allocations for certain departments. One of the projections that stand out according to some observers is the somewhat small amount allocated for the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology. This is a mere D296, 630 million.
Considering the dire need of skills and specialised expertise among the youths in the country, and taking cognizance of the drive to equip the country’s youth with skills, one would have expected that the allocation for the ministry responsible for that will be much higher than this rather small amount.
The focus of most countries in the developing world now is skills training and one daresay The Gambia is in dire need of this area of education. It is a fact that most of the needs of the country in the area of skills is met by foreign nationals which ensures that a lot of money flows out of the country because the citizens do not have the required expertise to do it themselves.
A budget should always be dictated by the most urgent needs of a time and currently, The Gambia is highly in need of the sector now referred to as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). As it falls under the purview of MoHERST to spearhead and propagate this, it would have been wiser to allocate more resources than is the case.
It is hoped that the scrutiny of the National Assembly will rectify some of the anomalies in the budget.
