By Adama Makasuba
Buah Saidy, governor of the Central Bank of Gambia has said the bank is working to control inflation in the country and ensure the growth of resilience.
Speaking at the quarterly press conference of the monetary policy committee held at the Central Bank of Gambia, governor Saidy told reporters: “we are working to tame inflation to ensure that the growth part that we have charted this country, the country does not only recover but a growth with resilient, with enough fiscal buffers, with enough foreign exchange cover and the like to move the country forward.”
Meanwhile, he said that they have restructured the bank to transform the country from a low-income country to a high-middle-income country
“The Central Bank of The Gambia has restructured the bank and we have developed what we call an economic transformation agenda for the sector for The Gambia, which will be a blueprint to transform the economy from a low-income country to a high middle-income country,” he added.
“So that every Gambian enjoys the shared prosperity and that the productivity of Gambians will increase that is what is keeping us here. So, as I said, we are very busy trying to ensure that we dig ourselves out of poverty from a low-income country to a middle-income country,” he said.
However, he explained the public service salary increment to not affect the country’s economy, adding that “the public salary increase is meant to put more money in the pockets of people, if people have more money, they spend more. So, that means the ability to spend more.”
“It was meant for a purpose because that purpose has been met among which is the unethical behaviour in the foreign exchange market. It was meant to address those kinds of issues and we felt that the objective had been achieved, that’s why we rescinded the directives. So, the message to the commercial banks is that people can now deposit money in their currency deposit account and the bank =s should allow them to withdraw their foreign currency,” he continued