Africa-Press – Gambia. Finance Minister Seedy Keita on Monday defended the government’s 2025 national budget, describing it as both “people-centered” and “fiscally responsible,” despite concerns over public spending in an election year.
In an interview with West Coast, Mr. Keita said the budget places the well-being of Gambians at its core while maintaining the country’s strongest fiscal discipline in a decade. He noted that the overall deficit—including government and donor funds—stands at 1 percent, with the deficit on government funds alone at 0.3 percent.
“The deficit on all funds, that is, government funds plus donor funds, is 1%, and the deficit on only government funds, which is the GLF component, is 0.3%, so technically we can say it is a very fiscally responsible budget,” he said.
Mr. Keita argued that public debate often focuses narrowly on ministry allocations rather than on the broader structure and purpose of national spending.
“What I have discovered when we lay out the budget in the last several years is that the discussion always centers on the allocation to the ministries on the spending,” he said. “The quality of the budget is, is it fiscally responsible? Are you investing in the right category of expenditure? As a developing country, our key resource is human capital,” he said.
He said the 2025 spending plan directs significant resources toward education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, and energy—sectors the government considers critical to national development.
“Education continues to outperform all other sectors in terms of allocation. Basic and secondary education alone has been allocated about D5.9 billion, almost D6 billion, and this is followed by health expenditure, which is another large allocation of about D3 billion. Agriculture, infrastructure, and energy are also fully supported in this budget,” he said.
Mr. Keita dismissed suggestions that the budget is politically motivated. Instead, he said, it reflects the administration’s intention to prioritize essential services and long-term development.
“So in a nutshell, this is what I would describe this budget as: fiscally responsible, people-centered, and putting the money where people deserve to receive funding from. And if you have a government and a leadership that is so focused on the well-being of the citizens, I don’t call that political,” he said.
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