By Buba Gagigo
Nyakassi M.B. Sanyang, the Statistician General of The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), has provided clarification regarding the deduction observed in the salaries of recruited Enumerators. He explained that this deduction constitutes a mandatory tax applied to all individuals receiving government payments.
Recently, a group of Enumerators undergoing training in Foni Ndemban expressed confusion over a deduction noted in their stipends, leading to a dispute involving GBoS staff member Abdou Sanyang.
According to reports obtained by Kerr Fatou, certain Enumerators refused to partake in exams, citing perceived “arrogance” from Abdou Sanyang, who represents GBoS. Allegedly, they were informed of a D2500 deduction from their pay, along with covering WAVE money transfer transaction fees.
However, Nyakassi M.B. Sanyang clarified that the deduction is indeed a tax mandated for income earned.
“We were recruiting people for the surveys and census without deducting anything from them, and it became an audit query, the last audit: that they should be paying tax because they are earning income. We were treating these payments as allowances before. They (the auditors) said no! These are incomes, and if you are earning D1200 per day for 21 days, at least you should get D25,000. So this is income, and tax should be paid, and since we are treating them as consultants or contractors, what we can do at the moment is to withhold their tax, which is 10%. This is what we told them.
“We told them that you have the right to go to GRA and complain and tell them they have part of your income withheld. We told them, if they don’t mind, they might pay more than what they have been deducted (if they go to GRA). It is mandatory that if anybody has income up to a certain level, they should pay tax. We have some people within them who know nothing, pretend to know a lot, and say we are cheating on them. We are trying to see how to address this issue; it is tough though, but I know we will get there,” Nyakassi M.B. Sanyang, the Statistician General of The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) said.
Regarding mobile money transfer charges, Sanyang emphasized the inevitability of such fees, likening them to the fees deducted from civil servants’ salaries when deposited in banks. He stressed the necessity of avoiding cash transactions for security reasons and outlined the available payment options: NAFA, YONNA, APS, and WAVE.
“There is no free lunch, these are services, and all of us, our salaries go to the Bank and we are charged fees for that. Even civil servants were asking, and I told them. How do you receive your salaries through the Bank? They said they pay. I told them what do they expect? Is just one percent. If you are to pay a thousand Dalasi, you only pay ten dalasi, and if you are paid twenty thousand, you only pay 200 Dalasis. I told them very clearly that we are not going to handle any cash because you can do a lot of things if you handle cash and we have to avoid that. In fact, it is not allowed for us to hold that amount of money to go and pay them. I told them that we are not going to do it, and the recommendation is to pay you through this mobile money or through the Bank. They have four options, that is NAFA, YONNA, APS and WAVE.”
Mr. Sanyang also refuted accusations that exams were not administered.
“They have confirmed to me that the exams were conducted. There was one person who was telling them not to take the exams but later they came and himself joined and they did the exams,” he said.