The National Assembly must immediately, decisively tame the government’s unrestrained appetite for misprioritised spending.

I take this opportunity to speak against the Supplementary Appropriation Bill (SAB) recently placed before Parliament by the Minister of Finance. The uncontrolled ballooning of the domestic debt by the government will further mortgage the future of our country. This Bill contains almost one billion Dalasi of political projects specifically calculated for 2021 elections.

This intention will fail woefully. Having regard to the severe vulnerability of our economy at a period of global recession, with declining domestic revenues (deficit of 5.5Billion Dalasis), and stunted growth, they are highly misplaced priorities that seek to intentionally procure undue partisan electoral advantages for the regime.

These partisan political calculations represent gross abuse of our resources, as the government intensifies it’s amateurish management of COVID-19 economy. The Minister of Finance, having already signalled that the economy may infact go into a recession, The National Assembly must immediately, decisively tame the government’s unrestrained appetite for misprioritised spending.

I urged the National Assembly to reject all of the unnecessary political projects of nearly a billion Dalasi contained in the SAB, trimming it in line with exigent economic priorities of the country. With this ill-conceived Bill, the government puts the political interests of the regime far more superior to the national interests of The Gambia.