Dr. Ousman Gajigo, Economist & Former ADB Official
By: Dr. Ousman Gajigo
A few days ago, I wrote an article about the 2024 budget. In writing that article, I focused mainly on the actual revenue and expenditure document with detailed itemization. I feel it is important to add more to the budget discourse after going through the budget speech presented by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Seedy Keita.
Listening or reading the budget speech, one gets a good idea of what the Barrow government actually thinks it is achieving. The disconnect with reality is simply too glaring. It is a major indictment not only on the Finance Minister’s competence, but that of the head of the executive, President Adama Barrow. The budget speech document is long on process but short on substance. Whereas it pays careful attention to insignificant protocols such as diligently sprinkling “Honourable Speaker” every few minutes, it assiduously avoided focusing on what really matters to the nation’s development.
When the Minister talks about supposed achievements in agriculture, there was no mention about the actual indicators in the sector that would tell anyone whether there have beenmeaningful developments such as increased local productivity and meeting food security needs. When the Minister touches on the education sector, there is no mention on learning outcomes, which is the ultimate objective of the sector. On the health sector, there is no mention of progress in disease preventions and access to treatments, which are the ultimate targets of the sector. The OIC Development Projects can only be considered success if we as a country has decided that standards do not matter. This avoidance of substance is not surprising because it is after all simple restatement of the substance-less State of Nation address by President Barrow earlier in the year.
Real achievements entails accomplishing meaningful goals. For many important national matters, these are often long-term in nature. Therefore, certain milestones and intermediate goals act as guideposts to help us determine if the nation is on the right path. One of these is the annual budget where, through actual allocation of resources, the government makes clear its development priorities. You can tell a leadership has lost sight of the key goals of a nation when they highlight meaningless goals and targets. In the budget speech delivered by Minister Keita, one can discern the confusion by observing what milestones and goals they focus on.
One of the sectors highlighted by Minister Keita in the budget speech is education. He claims that it has the largest allocation because of the necessity to invest in human capital. This is a perfect example of a saying one thing when there are no meaningful actions to bring us closer to that professed goal.Before continuing with the nature of the budget allocation, let me digress on a more fundamental problem. The fact that there is not one Ministry of Education but rather two points to a more fundamental problem that is deeper than its budget allocation for a single year.
It makes no sense in the current Gambian context to put basic education and higher education in separate ministries. Higher education Ministry should be a directorate within a single Ministry of Education. For one, the separation needlesslyfragments the sector education budget. The creation of a ministry necessarily involves creation of particular posts such as permanent secretaries, directors and many other administrative positions, which entail duplication of roles that are not essential or needed. For a poor country with limited resources, this is a costly waste. Another reason why the continued separation of the education ministries is a bad idea is that there is lack of integration in the education sector strategy and policy. An example is that we have a Ministry of Higher Education hell bent on creating more universities when the number of senior secondary school graduates meeting the university entrance requirement is barely 500. That number is insufficient just for UTG alone. Furthermore, there are major urgent issues at UTG that require addressing.
The country had an opportunity to correct this strategic mistake with the removal of Yahya Jammeh from power. But just as the Adam Barrow government failed to enact any meaningful reforms in any sector after coming to power, we are stuck with directives of a dictator as if his poorly considered decisions are the best there ever was.
Going back to the budget, the Minister Keita erroneously indicated that the budget allocation would allow investments in the human capital. Virtually all the allocation to the education sector in 2024 budget is recurrent budget rather than development. With only a tiny amount going into development budget, how can this budget be said to enable investments in human capital? In all likelihood, all the money promised to the sector will not end up being delivered.
While Minister Keita’s speech tries to make a big deal of infrastructure spending, echoing President Barrow’s frequent self-congratulatory boasts of late, both the figures in the budget speech and the country’s sorry state of infrastructure tells a different story. While recurrent expenditures increasedsignificantly across the broad, particularly in areas less essential to the country’s development need, capital expenditures actually declined in the 2024 budget.
The 2024 budget also exposes the real truth on whether the deal signed with Africa50 involving the Senegambia Bridge can be truly considered as asset recycling. The budget speech indicatesthat among the anticipated revenues for 2024 is a $15 million as a first tranche payment from Africa50 for the bridge. Either Minister Keita was confused or was stretching the truth earlier this year because what transpired between the Government of the Gambia and Africa50 was not asset recycling. As I pointed out on numerous occasions, assets recycling has two components: (i)monetizing a particular asset; and (2) using the proceeds from that asset to fund a particular infrastructure. The presence of both of these components is essential. By simplymonetizing an asset without a clear plan and commitment for financing a new infrastructure project just means that you haveeither sold or mortgaged the asset.
In Minister Keita’s numerous public pronouncements on the matter earlier this year, I suspected that he had a limited understanding of the deal that he was spearheading for the country. The Barrow government was simply very eager to receive funds to spend as they please. In the budget speech, there was no mention of what specific infrastructure project that $15 million would finance. Given the fact that over 90% of the budget allocation is for recurrent expenditures, it is safe to conclude that the first tranche will not go towards any particularinfrastructure investment. Otherwise, it would have been explicitly mentioned. And neither will the remaining tranches be used any differently. It is what many of us feared. The Senegambia Bridge was indeed mortgaged.
Another important detail that comes out from the budget that neither Minister Keita nor President Barrow would not want to highlight is the loss of confidence in the Gambia government from our development partners. If one looks closely at the budget, you will realize that the development assistance as a whole from donors will decline between 2023 and 2024. The government tries to cover this by putting high values for their 2025 projections to camouflage the pattern. But no one knowledgeable puts any stock in those projections because of their historic deviations from reality. For those who paid close attention to the last 5 years of the Yahya Jammeh regime, you would have noticed a consistent decline in assistance from development partners. When development partners do not see results and there is no materialization of promises about reforms, they disengage. That is evident in our 2024 budget.
On the economy overall, a growth rate of 4.8% would be excellent for a developed country that already has high per capita income but such a figure is bad for a poor country like The Gambia. Moreso, for a poor country that should be experiencing catch-up growth after a global shock. But one does not need numbers from a budget speech to realize that theGambian economy has been doing poorly. For those on the ground, just look around. If you are not on the ground, simply ask an average Gambian.