By: Binta Jaiteh
The Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Seedy Keita has said that the government’s total expenditure in 2025 stands at D47.4 billion, representing an increment of 21 percent from the 2024 budget total expenditure of D31.2 billion.
He made this disclosure while presenting the 2025 budget to lawmakers on Friday and said the D16.2 billion increment will be capital and net lending.
According to him, personnel emoluments, use of goods and services, subsidies and transfers, and capital are expected to increase by 20%, 2%, 31% and 35% respectively.
“The projected increase in personnel emolument expenditures from the approved figure of D7.4 billion for 2024 to D8.8 billion in 2025 is largely driven by the projected D1.4 billion impact from the proposed increase in salaries and the increase of transport and residential allowances.
“The increase in the personnel emoluments is due to an average increase of 30% in the salaries of the core civil service,” Minister Keita explained on Friday.
He added that transport and house rent allowances will be increased from D1,500 to D3,000 and from D1,700 to D3,500 respectively.
He further explained that these increases in allowances will apply to grades 1- 8 under the integrated pay scale of the civil service.
He disclosed that the Government has developed a new integrated pay scale to reflect these changes.
He told the lawmakers that the 2025 salary increment will make a total salary increase of 60% from 2022 to 2025 adding that it will bring the total salary increase to 110% under the leadership of President Adama Barrow.
He pointed out that this is a manifestation that the budget allocation of the Government is people-centric with the aim of improving the lives and livelihoods of Gambians.
Minister Keiat stated that debt servicing continues to attract the largest allocation of the budget, adding that for 2025, D11 billion (23% of the budget) will be allocated to debt servicing.
He noted that this is due to the commencement of debt servicing following the Debt deferral initiation,
“For goods & services expenditure, the projected increase, from D9.79 billion in 2024 to D9.98 billion in 2025, is mainly due to OIC-related expenditure (excluding vehicles), travel, rents & rates, and training,” he explained.