Landing Colley
Momodou Ceesay, National Assembly Member for Janjanbureh has urged both sides of the House to give priority to agriculture in the 2021 budget, stressing GMD430, 000, 00 allocated to the ministry in the estimate budget is not enough.
He made the remarks on Wednesday while contributing to the budget estimate for 2021 and also the report of the Finance Public Account Committee (F\ PAC).
“I will be please for the ministry and the parliamentarian to sit down and look at the importance of agriculture and how they should be given allocation. The GMD430, 000, 00 budget allocated for agriculture has left some activities out” he said.
He added: “Agriculture contributed GMD1.9million dalasi this year and before agriculture provides 20% to the GDP and it is reducing because there is no serious investment in agriculture.”
He pointed that said this year GMD433, 000,000 (four hundred and thirty-three million) allocated to agriculture but apparently what is allocated to them is GMD402, 000,000 (four hundred and two million) and that led to a deficit of thirty-three million which the ministry can explain to them why that happens.
“This year GMD1.6 billion only D400, 000,000 (four hundred million dalasis) is coming from the government and out of that four hundred million, two hundred million is going to the recurrent and only two hundred million is for development. Is this way we want to continue?” he asked.
He also said members were informed that eight hundred million dollars is used to bring rice into this country, calling for effort to stop importation and prioritize agriculture and look into areas that will make the country sustainable this begging cannot continue.
“If you look at the ministry of agriculture there are some activities that need serious consideration and am appealing that the ministry of agriculture is one agency that needs to be prioritized because it is only agriculture that we may depend on after Covid,” he said.