The much talked about 20% salary increment recently authorized by President Jammeh is set to cost the Gambia government D200m (Two hundred million Dalasi) a year, according to Hon. Musa Bala Gaye, Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs. Secy. Bala Gaye, who was speaking at the opening of a two-day seminar for the review of the draft civil service and pension reforms at the Atlantic Hotel yesterday, also revealed that the Salaries bill to the government is about D917 million annually.

“The recent 20% salary increment has cost the Gambian Government D200m in one year. Today only the salaries bill to government is about D917m on an annual basis. What more can government take,” Secy. Gaye queried.

He added that government has taken note of the fact that it has a non-contributory scheme, which has resulted in very low monthly pension payment for retired civil servants.

According to the Finance and Economic Affairs Secy., the highest monthly pension payment in the country is about D3, 000. “We have over 800 people having pensions of D100 and the scale goes on. The people in the D2, 000 scale bracket are very few.”

This, he added, cannot continue, expressing the need to have a scheme that would take care of the present predicament of the retired civil servants while making provisions for those who will retire in future.

“The Pensions Act as it stands is really not one of best practices. We must therefore look at the institutional arrangements for the management of pensions,” he noted.

Secy. Gaye further expressed government’s concern with the reform of the civil service over the years. “We were concerned with issues of capacity building, compensation package that was being paid to the civil service and related to the compensation package were the issues of both attrition and retention.

“Equally we were concerned with the pensions system that was in place and the fact that the retired civil servants were earning very meager sums on a monthly basis,” he stated.