By: Nyima Sillah
Scores of citizens have expressed their dismay about the government’s 30% salary increment as against the promised 100% increment during the campaign period by the present government.
The 30% increment has brought up so many debates on social media as many observed it as a political strategy to get into the hearts of the voters.
In an interview, Ebrahim Sowe said if the government know that the 100% increment would not meet, it could have been better if they target the low-salary earners, especially the police, Army, teachers, and so on.
“If you want to increase the salaries of civil servants or government workers to 30% it means you are trying to garden what we call a pure capitalist society where the rich will grow richer and the poor will grow poorer,” he said.
“The 30% will be effective and gather more figures at the side of those earning, example, D40, 000 than those one earning D5, 000 a month and if you look at their responsibilities, ministers are not very responsible more than any low salary earners,” he claimed.
According to him, he said it would have been better if the government creates a gap between the increase example 30% for civil servants, 10 or 15% for the Ministers “but a parallel increment of 30% is not important it will not help Gambians to move forward or grow.”
In her reaction to the increment, Amie Faye, said these are political strategies that have been addressed. “We need to look at how to increase our export. It should not be agriculture we should create factories to create jobs, and employment, look at our GDP, look at the tourism sector, Ports look into what can attract people outside the world that can bring them to The Gambia and use our services. These are the things we should work on to address the challenges we are facing.”
She said the government should have excluded the top tier earners, ranging from the Deputy Permanent Secretaries to the president who is already reasonably earning enough from the pay rise, and concentrated on those below that are struggling to make ends meet on daily basis.
She expressed disappointment at the National Assembly Members saying they have allowed themselves to be used by the President.
However, Lamin Fatty said “Gambian ministers will have D15,000 added to their D50,000 monthly salary. Whilst civil servants will have D750 added to their salaries and cannot even purchase a bag of rice. This increment should have been specifically based on the low-income earners. The government is not fair to us and this is going to be a total failure for all of us.”
“It is a sad reality that the ministers will become richer and the informal sector will suffer the worst. This government does not worry about inflation, hiking of prices of fuel, food, and the poor performance of the economy which is severely affecting the lives and livelihoods of citizens. At least 45% increment would have been better but 30% is definitely below standard compared to the amount that was said,” Mariama Jallow argued.
