By: Nyima Sillah
The lawmaker for Janjanbureh cum member of the Assembly’s Tourism, Arts & Culture, Youth and SportsCommittee Omar Jammeh has doubted the government’s willingness to rise to the challenges of irregular migration and issues affecting young people.
“Irregular migration has become a national concern but there is no strategy by the government to address the menace,” he maintained.
The Janjanbureh legislator explained to The Voice in an exclusive interview that he wasn’t certain whether the Gambia government is ready to deal with the issues, affecting youth given the 2% budgetary allocation for youth and sports matters in the 2024 Budget.
NAM Jammeh pointed out that the 2024 budget was tailored to plug the 2023 budget deficit. This, he explained, has crammed this year’s budget, saying the D122.3M allocated to the Ministry of Youth (MoY)represents less than 2% of the total national budget.
“This has proven below expectations in addressing cross-cutting issues. I understand youth matters are cross-cutting issues and even the Ministry of Youth and Sports neither has what it takes to create sustainable employment for the youth nor create schemes for self-employment,” he argued.
The Janjanbureh lawmaker contended that underemployment, unemployment, migration, rural and irregular drift, lack of life skills, and access to grants or funds for startups have seriously challenged the MoY.
He asserted that the budgetary allocation for MoY just increased from D101,575M last year to D122.3M this year. This, he lamented, represents 0.46% of the entire budget.
“This is insufficient. At least a minimum of 10% of the national budget if not 30% of it should have been allocated to MoYS,” NAM Jammeh suggested.
He pointed out that the 2024 budget is restricted and couldn’t accommodate a lot, especially for sectors such as health, education, agriculture, and tourism.
Meanwhile, legislator Jammeh recalled that PresidentAdama Barrow promised to create 150,000 jobs for youth but added that the government lacks a coherentstrategy for actualizing this.