By: Nyima Sillah
Honourable Kebba Tumanding Sanneh, National Assembly Member for Foni Jarrol Constituency said the 2023 budget is not realistic.
He stated in an interview with this medium that a lot of foundation stones were laid before the past local government, mayoral elections, and a lot of promises were made by the president, too.
“All projects that President Barrow should undertake should be approved by the National Assembly. But if President Barrow is going around laying down foundation stones, I don’t know how he is going to fulfill that promise because if you look at the budget itself, it was a D4 billion deficit which means we have gone beyond what we need. Meaning we don’t have that money. That’s why when the budget came out I said our national budget for 2023 is not realistic,” he exclaimed.
He added that the programs that are already listed and all the other programs that were listed to be undertaken within institutions have gone beyond four billion, and the promises that Barrow is making to people are not within the budget.
“Remember one road, even if it is a 10km road is going to cost nothing more than 30 million dalasis and Barrow has laid foundation stones almost everywhere in the country for roads, again they promised to build five standard hospitals.
“Why are they going to build five standard hospitals in the country when you have five referring hospitals without medication, good facilities? As it is raining now, some hospitals are calling me that the roofs are leaking,” he noted.
Meanwhile, he alleged that NAWEC, GAMTEL, Port Authority, and SARO, might end up privatizing or they will have to terminate some of their employees because they are crippling, they are sinking day by day.
More so, he exclaimed “I am judging based on the reports that are coming to the National Assembly. NAWEC is indebted. They borrowed more than they could. NAWEC owes Gam Petroleum, Social Security, Senegal, and so on and the worst thing is that they signed an agreement with Senegal on the supply of electricity and they will use foreign currency to pay them.”
“For Gamtel, their service is poor, people using their network to create their network. You go to SARO, some laborers are contracted without contract letters, and Port Senegal made us increase the tariff and they reduced their tariff and now most of the vehicles that carry imports came through Senegal and smuggled to the country,” he alleged.