By: Bakary Ceesay
Hon. Suwaibou Touray, National Assembly member for Wuli East has lamented that aid never or cannot secure the future especially on a permanent solution.
“Hon. Speaker, I think what is happening is that we are having our honeymoon with our development partners who the President said are quite generous. But we must remember that there is no silver platter and sooner or later the loans must be paid and that would be the end of the honeymoon. We should never forget the bitter mid – 1980s,” he said during a debate on President Barrow’s address to the Nation on 3rd October, 2019 at National Assembly Chambers in Banjul.
On aid dependency
He said it is his conviction that the economy must be developed as to provide effective funding to all key institutions if they want them to perform to expectations.
He argued that redefining the economics of development for the Gambia or any other country and gauging the success should not be anchored on the number of projects, the amount of dollars spent but rather on measurements against certain standards.
“For example Average life expectancy, Percentage of the population living below 1dollar a day, Whether the gap in earnings from exports and imports is closing or widening, Whether we are still contemplating privatisation of State assets or not, What is the debt portfolio to the annual GDP? Is it twice or more of the country’s combined Education and Health budgets or even more? What is our aid share of GDP, is 10 percent or more and the aid percentage of government revenues; is it 50 or 75% percent?” he highlighted.
“Hon. Speaker, the answers to these questions would help us to know whether indeed we have redefined our economic process and to do so we must alert our minds to the realities of the Gambian economy” he noted.
Hon. Touray, believe that the Gambia will change but only if its fundamental model of aid dependency is abandoned in favour of limited aid for crucial and or critical economic issues which can have real positive outcomes.
“Our focus I think should be on how we finance our development agenda without having to depend entirely on aid. For aid never or cannot secure the future especially on a permanent solution,”
