The Gambia’s Minister of Finance tabled the 2027 Draft Budget in Parliament on 25th September 2026, requesting a domestic debt interest payment exceeding funding for education and health separately. Askanwi’s budget research has revealed that in 2025 and 2026, education funding (MoBSE and MoHERST) was above domestic debt interest. However, this is all set to change in the 2027 Draft Budget.

More in this budget report.

A comparison between the Finance Minister’s latest Budget Implementation Report to Parliament and the Government’s own Public Debt Bulletins has revealed that Finance Minister Keita under-reported domestic debt interest payments by up to D376 million for the first six months of 2026.

More in this feature publication.

The Gambia’s Finance Minister, Hon. Seedy S. Keita, has revealed that approximately D10 billion of the country’s D52.91 billion domestic debt stock consists of legacy debts inherited from the previous administration of former President Yahya Jammeh. Our budget research reveals that this only accounts for 19% of the total domestic debt.

More in this news report from the Finance Minister’s Parliamentary Budget Implementation Report.

The Gambia’s finance minister, Hon. Seedy Keita, informed Parliament that the government under-collected by over D3.3 billion in non-tax revenue in 2025, representing over 42% of the overall non-tax revenue target. Our data-driven feature publication analyses the total revenue collected during President Adama Barrow’s nine years in office.

More in this budget update.

The Gambia’s Supreme Court has ruled in favour of four civil society advocates, holding that the Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs, Hon. Seedy S. Keita, violated the 1997 Constitution by tabling the 2025 National Budget late.

More in this landmark case which Askanwi has been following from the start.

The Gambia’s Finance Minister, Hon. Mambury Njie, informed members of the National Assembly’s Special Committee that the government received one billion dalasis in its accounts on 20th April 2020. The Minister explained that the “very soft loan from the IMF has now landed in our account. It’s a facility that they [IMF] normally provide. It’s about one billion dalasis.” More in this feature report.

Finance Minister Seedy Keita informed Parliamentarians that a record budget deficit of D7 billion was observed from the first nine months of 2025. Our budget researchers have ascertained that this has broken all records set for budget deficits since President Barrow took over from former President Jammeh in 2017. More in our feature publication interrogating the actual and approved budget deficit from 2017 to date.

During a parliamentary engagement, Finance Minister Hon. Seedy S. Keita told the National Assembly Member that “Agriculture attracts an increase of 84% in 2026 from 2025, the largest allocation in the last ten years.” Our reporter looked at the data to ascertain if the Finance Minister’s claims are accurate.

More in the feature report.

The Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Hon. Jabbie, claimed that The Gambia did not collect D10 billion in 2022 and that tax revenue increased to D20.8 billion by 2024.

Our reporter investigates these claims using data from the Ministry of Finance, Gambia Revenue Authority and Gambia Bureau of Statistics.

Find out more in this feature publication.

The Finance Minister is set to table Cabinet’s 2026 Draft Budget in Parliament on Friday, 31st October 2025, requesting for National Assembly Members to approve D59.3 billion in expenditures for 2026. This publication contrasts the government spending on recurrent and development expenditures and highlights the whopping D13.4 billion National Debt Service. More in the report.