Dr. Ousman Gajigo, Economist formerly with ADB
By Dr. Ousman Gajigo
Mr. Baboucarr Bouy, the Minister of Public Service, Administrative Reforms, Policy Coordination and Delivery, was recently reported by the news media as saying that planned salary increase for civil servants was delayed due to insufficient revenue. His stated reason for the lack of salary increases is clearly wrong. And Mr. Bouy should know better.
Let me start out by saying that Minister Bouy has been a well-respected civil servant. However, any individual who willingly joins a government with the poor track record of the AdamaBarrow regime has willingly exposed themselves to reputational risk. If Minister Bouy is going to stand before the Gambian public to give a reason for not increasing the salary of public servants, he owes the public valid reasons, both for the sake of truth and for his reputation.
No government is able to finance every item it wants. Budget constraints are non-negotiable facts of life even for developed countries, much more a developing country like ours. However, with the knowledge of such a limitation, it is even more paramount that the government is diligent and selective about how the country’s limited precious resources are allocated. After all, misallocation of resources has tremendous opportunity cost.
When the government decides to embark on carrying out an activity, first of all, it needed to decide whether the activity is worthwhile. And among the set of activities to be implemented, it needs to prioritize them by order of importance. The justification of salary increment for civil servants today is clear-cut. A well-paid and compensated workforce, in addition to being well selected, is absolutely essential to state capacity, andtherefore critical for effective and efficient service delivery by the government.
For a senior government official to stand before the public and claim that salary increment is delayed due to insufficient revenue is simply an attempt to pull wool over people’s eyes. It would effectively be saying to the Gambian people that we cannot afford any salary increase because we are a poor country.Would that be a valid argument today given the reality we live in when the same government is financing far less important and counter-productive activities?
The reality is that the government has managed to spend significant amounts of resources on a range of items recently. What Minister Bouy and the rest of the Barrow administration are effectively telling the Gambian people is that those items that have been financed, in spite of the state of the country’s revenue collections, are more important than increasing the salary of civil servants.
Let’s review some noteworthy expenditures recently financed by this government in which Minister Bouy serves. Just a few months ago, this government spent more than D40 million dalasi to pay media houses for positive coverage. In preparing for the OIC conference, this government spent an exorbitant amount in buying luxury vehicles for a two-day event. The 2024 budget showed almost D2 billion allocated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a lot of which went into maintaining embassies that that of little value to the country, and the continual inflation of ourforeign service workforce by individuals no serious government should nominate to represent them abroad. And the budget allocation to the State House is bloated beyond any reasonable justification. One could go on and on.
Through its actions, the government is effectively saying that all of the above, despite the fact that they represent almost no value to the country, are more important than increasing the salaries of civil servants. After all, resources were allocated to them despite the current state of our revenues. Therefore, the response that is consistent with the activities of the Adama Barrow government as to why civil servant salaries have not been increased is to state that it is not an item that the government considers sufficiently important enough to merit addressing. After all, actions speak louder than words. This government has demonstrated that it would finance many other things of frivolous significance to nation’s long-term development.
Without any inside knowledge, one cannot dismiss the possibility that the decision not to increase the salaries of civil servants was made despite the best efforts of Minister Bouy. After all, such a decision would not be made at the level of only one ministry. But Minister Bouy has made it impossible to be given any benefit of the doubt by deciding to appear before the Gambian public to give such a poor excuse.
The truth of the matter is that most of the expenditures undertaken by this government, of which Minister Bouy is serving in the highest decision-making body, is wasteful and unproductive. The problem is not that the revenue is low. The problem is that the wrong items are prioritized. And the whole country, not just civil servants, is paying for the incompetence of this administration. The standards of livings continue to deteriorate, while corruption remains rampant. And the government continues to make decisions not in the interest of the country, but for pure political expediency. And anyone who serves in the cabinet – the top decision-making body of that administration such as Baboucarr Bouy – bears responsibility for the problem by the choices they made with their eyes opened.