His Excellency Muhammad B.S. Jallow the Vice President of the Republic of the Gambia
By Ramatoulie Jawo
The Vice President of the Republic of the Gambia, His Excellency Muhammad B.S. Jallow, informed the National Assembly Members (NAMs) that the government’s expenditure on poverty alleviation-related programs for the fiscal year 2022 amounted to D10.4 billion.
VP Jallow stated that the 2022 numbers were a significant increase over the 2021 figure of 6.4 billion GMD, by 59%.
“I wish to inform the Honorable Member for Serrekunda Constituency that the government of the Gambia, under its microeconomic program, is monitoring poverty reduction spending on a quarterly and annual basis. I wish to report that in 2021, the total spending on poverty alleviation related programs stood at D6.4 billion and rose to D10.4 billion by the end of the 2022 fiscal year, representing a 59 percent growth.,” he told the NAMs. The Vice President, on Monday, responded to a question from Hon. Musa Cham, the National Assembly Member for Serrekunda Constituency, on the progress of the government’s poverty alleviation program. He said that the government is making significant progress in registering the most vulnerable households in the country. This is in order to develop a framework for targeted social protection interventions.
Hon. Cham asked the Vice President, in a supplementary question, to inform the Assembly of the number of families that have been lifted out of poverty by the poverty alleviation program.
In his response, Vice President Jallow said that there is a poverty alleviation program in place and that the Minister of Finance has identified items that can be used to reduce costs for families.
“It is now with only the Social Protection Program that we are now going to target families, that is why the registration is being done. As of now, I think about 80 thousand households have been captured in the registration. The idea is to capture the whole population of this country to identify vulnerable people and then target them directly. I think until that time we cannot be able to tell you how many households are supported directly,” he said.
Hon. Bakary Badjie, the National Assembly Member for Foni Bintang, asked Vice President Jallow in Parliament when poverty will be totally eradicated from the country through the poverty alleviation program.
Vice President Jallow responded that the government will continue to increase its efforts to reduce poverty in the Gambia.