{"id":91292,"date":"2025-12-03T14:56:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T14:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T15:10:05","slug":"finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered","title":{"rendered":"Finance Minister Describes 2025 Budget as People-Centered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span><b>Finance Minister Seedy Keita on Monday defended the government\u2019s 2025 national budget, describing it as both \u201cpeople-centered\u201d and \u201cfiscally responsible,\u201d despite concerns over public spending in an election year.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In an interview with West Coast, Mr. Keita said the budget places the well-being of Gambians at its core while maintaining the country\u2019s strongest fiscal discipline in a decade. He noted that the overall deficit\u2014including government and donor funds\u2014stands at 1 percent, with the deficit on government funds alone at 0.3 percent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Keita argued that public debate often focuses narrowly on ministry allocations rather than on the broader structure and purpose of national spending.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat 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,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said the 2025 spending plan directs significant resources toward education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, and energy\u2014sectors the government considers critical to national development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEducation 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Keita dismissed suggestions that the budget is politically motivated. Instead, he said, it reflects the administration\u2019s intention to prioritize essential services and long-term development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo 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\u2019t call that political,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Gambia<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. Finance Minister Seedy Keita on Monday defended the government\u2019s 2025 national budget, describing it as both \u201cpeople-centered\u201d and \u201cfiscally responsible,\u201d 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\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":91291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-91292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-head-lines","tag-gambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Finance Minister Describes 2025 Budget as People-Centered - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Finance Minister Seedy Keita on Monday defended the government\u2019s 2025 national budget, describing it as both \u201cpeople- ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finance Minister Describes 2025 Budget as People-Centered\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Finance Minister Seedy Keita on Monday defended the government\u2019s 2025 national budget, describing it as both \u201cpeople- ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-03T14:56:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-03T15:10:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/sm_1764761969.041481.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Finance Minister Describes 2025 Budget as People-Centered\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-03T14:56:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-03T15:10:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered\"},\"wordCount\":383,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/sm_1764761969.041481.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Gambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Economy\",\"head lines\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/finance-minister-describes-2025-budget-as-people-centered\",\"name\":\"Finance Minister Describes 2025 Budget as People-Centered - 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