Information Minister Dismisses Darboe’s Proposal to Cut President’s Salary, Says UDP Is ‘Not Ready for Government’

By Fatou Sillah

The Minister of Information, Media, and Broadcasting Services, Dr. Ismaila Ceesay, has dismissed proposals to reduce the president’s salary as an inadequate response to The Gambia’s economic challenges, arguing that meaningful fiscal reform would require a broader examination of government spending.

Speaking in an interview with West Coast Radio, Dr. Ceesay was responding to remarks by the leader of the United Democratic Party, Ousainou Darboe, who had appeared earlier on the same programme.

Dr. Ceesay said political leaders seeking the presidency should offer comprehensive and sustainable proposals to address the country’s economic and governance challenges rather than focusing on measures he said would have little effect on overall public finances.

“How would reducing a president’s salary really solve a national problem?” Dr. Ceesay asked. “How would it be in a meaningful manner?”

He argued that the president’s salary represents only a small component of government expenditure and said any serious effort to improve the country’s fiscal position would have to address much larger areas of public spending.

Those areas, he said, include government procurement, debt servicing, subsidies intended to cushion the effects of the global cost-of-living crisis, the public-sector wage bill, state-owned enterprises, and government projects.

Dr. Ceesay said the Barrow administration was already making progress in some of those areas, although he did not provide figures during the remarks to quantify the savings or improvements.

He also used the interview to question the UDP’s readiness to govern, saying Mr. Darboe’s proposals had reinforced his view that the main opposition party had not adequately confronted what he described as the country’s fundamental economic challenges.

“The more I listen to him, the more I am convinced that UDP is not ready for government because it seems like they fail to grasp the most basic problems of this government,” Dr. Ceesay said.

Dr. Ceesay also responded to Mr. Darboe’s reported proposal that taxpayers should not bear the president’s household expenses.

He argued that a distinction should be made between the president’s personal expenses and expenditures associated with carrying out the duties of the presidency.

Costs related to security, protocol, official hospitality, and the maintenance of official residences, he said, should not automatically be characterized as the president’s private household expenses.

Dr. Ceesay called for greater clarity about which presidential expenses Mr. Darboe believes should be paid personally rather than from public funds.

The exchange highlights a broader debate over government spending and the cost of maintaining the presidency as political parties sharpen their economic messages ahead of The Gambia’s December presidential election.