By: Kemo Kanyi
The Governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG), Hon. Buah Saidy, has revealed that the apex bank has already issued an operational license to the Social Development Fund (SDF) to operate as the country’s first-ever development bank.
During the presentation of the budget in December, 2024, the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Seedy Keita, informed the National Assembly that the government intended to convert SDF into a development bank to ease access to finance.
In an interview with Peter Gomez on Coffee Time Tuesday, Mr. Saidy said that ambition by the government has already become a reality because the SDF has met all necessary requirements to start banking operations.
“That has now actualized, Social Development Fund (SDF) has applied to the Central Bank to get a banking license and they [SDF] met all the requirements, so we issued an operational license to them. That license is now with SDF to be turned to a development bank. Although, I can’t tell when are they going to start that operation, but it can easily be done because they have their own premises and their other assets that can support, and also the capital requirement was met,” the CBG governor revealed.
Capital Market
The CBG boss said The Gambia already has an existing capital market. He explained that the government plans to increase the activities of the capital market in 2025, stating that it wants to ensure that the bottleneck faced in accessing finance is relaxed. Hon. Saidy maintained that the government is seriously working to actualise that reality so that the use of capital market is not limited to corporate institutions, adding that NAWEC and NRA are the institutions, issuing corporate bonds.
The governor added that in order to appreciate the value of the dalasi, the government plans to increase domestic production, saying that will reduce the importation burden on the nation and will enhance the appreciation of the value of the dalasi by embarking on industrial-scale production. He said the capital market can help in that direction.
