Appropriation Bill 2019

Granted, a budget is a management tool. Yes, our budget should represent national values and aspirations. Yes, good grief! The figures I see being shared on here are massive by any measurement, but that's about it, the figures! Until you know the justifications, the fiscal rules, spending warrants and other conditions precedent to convince the National Assembly to accept the bill, dismissing everything as outrageous is only making the tool an obstacle.

See, where resources are very limited, there will always be competing interests and priorities, like what's good for the builder, the environmental activist may not be okay with, just to give an instance, and lest a fallacy of relative privation tug of war, a NATIONAL budget will hardly be left to a referendum, even though it would've been politically correct to give folks that much illusion of a voice in their fiscal affairs.

So, for my part, unless I see an explicit argument as to the follies warranting all the fuss, or suggestions of better national results for less than the amounts requested, all opposition to the bill (not the Supplementary Appropriation Bill) is debatable. But that's just me trying to offer a voice of reason.

My friend had a problem with the new presidential advisory positions, but seemed okay when I said 'c'mon dude, even Harvard graduated presidents keep advisers' - some official and others on unofficial capacities, but as many as the subject matters that the president could use advice on, especially where the president feels left on his own and that's neither confirming nor denying that ours is, lest I be too much an empath.

Others are kinda nervous about the expectations at the Quadrangle: the salary increase. But quite frankly, if it's not okay to love a job that cannot even pay one-eighth of your bills, not okay to call yourself a worker that still envies his jobless friends, not okay to see your family fall apart because half of your life is dedicated to some compassion-deficient employment that gives an offering plate for a salary, and if it's not okay to invent travels or take bribes at it, then my friend, a raise is in order, particularly for retirees and those at the lower salary band. One needs not much empathy to see that.

Yes, for those who are long-term-oriented, the trend isn't sustainable and I agree, especially for families like typical Gambia’s that are so extended that even the extension of the extended family becomes family; these increases will only mean more dependency on the sole earners and supporters of such families.

But that's why we need new jobs for those who are still unemployed – y'know, distribute the availability of means of securing the necessities of life by de-concentrating earning abilities. Otherwise, the percentage raise for FY2019 regardless, relational burden will cause these civil servants to come next year and ask for more.

I’m of the belief that when more than one person in every household is gainfully engaged, and all willing to feed the kitty, the burden on individual income will lessen and that’ll encourage personal savings - a move from not affording to save to not affording to not save.

I heard the minister say the downside of the raise is putting a brake on all but essential civil service recruitments. Well, can the government provide work for everybody anyway? That’s not even possible.

The government’s job is to employ essential people who will help create the conditions for employment creation, restrict expenses to socially useful causes and essential national conveniences (yes, even when there is the budget to do otherwise), provide water, electricity, dependable communication, and facilities that’ll attract investment. But most of all, allow entrepreneurs to freely explore, innovate and profit. Yeah, we gotta allow them to PROFIT, because if they don’t profit, they wouldn’t employ and I hope that's the thinking.