The Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs has defended the decision of his ministry to allocate D1.2 billion dalasis for the country’s coronavirus pandemic response without parliamentary approval.

Mamburay Njie allocated the funds through a process known as virement – where the Finance ministry mobilised funds from the budgets allocations of the various government ministries, agencies, and departments.

The funds were used for President Barrow’s D734 million food aid package to Gambians and the Ministry of Health’s D500 million coronavirus response respectively. 

The Finance and Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly on Thursday criticised the Finance minister for not seeking the lawmakers approval before allocating the funds. 

Sidia Jatta, a member of the committee, called the virement process “illegal” and “fraudulent”. 

The Finance minister however denied breaking the law. He told the lawmakers at the hearing: “We did not act outside the budget approved by the National Assembly,” adding that the COVID-19 coronavirus funds were raised from the 2020 budget allocation “in line with the existing public finance regulations of the country.

‘’If we would have gone more what was approved, yes…But up to today, we have not spent anything that is beyond what was appropriated by the National Assembly in December 2019. 

“We were guided by the Public Finance Act 2014, which allows for virement.”

The Finance minister disclosed that a significant percentage of the D500 million was cut from the travel allocations of the government “because global travel has been restricted due to the COVID pandemic while the entire D734 million was sourced from savings from the debt service referral from development partners.”

Members of the National Assembly subcommittee, including Ya Kumba Jaiteh, Sidia Jatta, and Fatounatta Njie observed that the provisions of the Public Finance Act that the Ministry relied on were in contravention with the Constitution and should be revised. 

The Finance minister said they were in the process of revising the Act to conform with the Constitution “but until that is done, they have to rely on it to do to their work.”

He also insisted that they had to act quickly to provide food support to Gambians.