By Binta Jaiteh
Honourable Assan Touray, National Assembly Member for Bakau Constituency, has quarried the sustainability of salary increment and proposed that 50% add to the low-income earners’ salary instead of 30% whilst the high-income earners’ salary remain.
During the debate on the revised budget at the National Assembly the member he submitted that when it comes to salary increment there is no one that would go against it, whether it is sustainable or not. “The task before us is a delicate one and the issue of the creation of new ministries a few months ago and we are informed that they receive allowances and salary of which are not budgeted for and the explanation is not yet done on how those Ministries are paid. I want an explanation before giving my support to this revised budget,” he argued.
He said the government is keeping silent in creating jobs for the youths and coming up with a revised budget of which they want the NA blessing, therefore, “I recommend to the entire Ministry and Government to do something about unemployment.”
Honourable Lamin Ceesay member for Kiang West said he has observed that there would be a necessity for the Minister of Finance to properly look into this matter since they are halfway through the fiscal year adding that “it should be a better ideal for the Ministry to do the general salary scale review.”
He said after the review it will give them the room to observe whether those earning low salaries can be given a certain percentage of those earning high too but hence that is not done at this time, he said he believes that the increment is not feasible.
Honourable Maimuna Ceesay, a nominated member supported the budget because it has three components – revised, deficit, and balanced budget while the reason for the reviewing of this budget may include cutting down the expenses which also is another significant situation.
She said when they talk about the supplementary budget and the revenue what they have is higher than the expected expenditure and the balanced budget that is expected to match with the current revenue. By knowing that among this category they will know where the economy lies.
However, “this is a very commendable move from the Minister of Finance to see that the welfare of the Gambians more so civil servants is put into consideration, we are all facing the global pandemic and another unexpected war which is the Ukraine–Russia war. We find ourselves in a situation that needs collective responsibility to stand for the interest of the whole country,” she disclosed.
