By Seedy Jobe
The secretary general of the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism, Hon. Suwaibou Touray, delivered a sharp assessment of the ruling National People’s Party’s economic stewardship this week, calling its record a failure and warning that conditions will continue to deteriorate if the government’s approach goes unchanged.
Speaking in an interview with QTV as the NPP’s term draws to a close, Mr. Touray said most Gambians, farmers in particular, are experiencing a steady erosion of their earning power.
He pointed to the groundnut sector as a case in point. Once the backbone of the rural economy, groundnut farming is now in distress, he said. Many farmers in his own constituency, he added, are entering a new planting season with last year’s harvest still unsold and no assurance of a market ahead.
Mr. Touray also cited a downturn across other key sectors of the economy. Tourism, he said, has yet to recover from a near-collapse that began in 2019, and foreign direct investment has continued to slide.
On public debt, he said government borrowing has reached a level at which the International Monetary Fund has determined that The Gambia can no longer access further loans without a grant component attached. Both loans and grants budgeted by the government, he added, have consistently fallen short of projections.
As a result, Mr. Touray said, the government has increasingly turned to what he described as “asset recycling” — citing the leasing of the Senegambia Bridge, concessions granted at the Banjul port, and a planned privatization of roughly 80 percent of Gamcel, the state telecommunications company, as examples.
“It means, as we go, this government is not capable of managing the assets, managing the institutions that are established that will support the tax base to be able to create a budget that would be able to take care of the living conditions of the Gambian people,” he said.
The Wuli East lawmaker said that without a change in direction, the country’s economic difficulties would only deepen.
Comments are closed.