A year has gone another year is born. As we ushered into the year 2011, there is a need for us to reflect our minds on 2010 to outline the achievement and challenges in our national development process.
Consequently, we have started a New Year to face the future with challenges to achieve a stable economy and political environment for both domestic and foreign capital investment.
Lot of water has passed under the bridge during the year under review and we need to evaluate ourselves adequately, give better thoughts to what had happened in 2010 and open a new chapter for attitudinal changes. Attitudinal change should commence with our leaders being political, religious, traditional or opinion leaders in order to nurture a cohesive society for the betterment of the future generation.
Phenomenal inefficiency in service delivery or operations is indeed present in all sectors of the economy, being in agriculture, education, finance, health, trade, communication, tourism, environment, transport amongst others had significantly retarded the development of our beloved nation.
This phenomenon can only be changed if we all accept the truthful nature of the problems our society is facing, mend our mode of operations and give the devils their dues. Gambia is for all Gambians irrespective of ethnicity, religion, colour or political affiliation. If we fail in our responsibility, all of us will feel the pinch of the pain.
We should graduate from those capricious ideas of “we are in control of the state resources”. We should go back to grassroots level and find out the pressing needs of the people and encourage people to voice out their problems, regardless to the political party they are in support of. Most often the people who are capable of telling our leader their problems are never called to speak on political platforms.
We need domestic economic strategizing to ensure resourcefulness of the populace. There is no need to spend our meager resources in advocating for the change of the country to a monarchical system. However, the President needs support by complementing his efforts to achieve his development objectives, especially in his quest of changing Gambia into a Silicon Valley.
The Gambia is not blessed with prestigious much mineral resources like diamond, gold etc, but with a vast stretches of arable land from Kartong to Koina, fresh water and pools if properly utilized at the right time can bring foster economic growth. The labour force in agricultural sector has remarkable reduced compared to the available labour force underutilized. Youths need to understand the importance of land and agriculture in the national economy, if we are to respond positively towards the president’s calls “operation back to land”, “operation feed yourself” and “operation feed the nation”.
In intra and inter house competitions in schools, most students concentrate more on dresses and appearance than they concentrate on their education at home and school. Instead of helping these students to excel, money is dished out to them for party when the necessary learning materials are inadequate. The department also focuses on building numerous classroom buildings instead of improving capacity of teacher and teacher sufficiency. These can be achieved by increasing the teacher emoluments and sustainability, give the graduate teachers their right positions and pays.
Improvement of personal income is a prerequisite for economic development. The prices of commodities are unsteadily hiking, transport, rents, and many more. The lack of increase in income will subjects workers to borrowing and cutting down expenses and this will certainly induce them to corruption, embezzlement of public funds and malingering during the working hours so as to satisfy their basic needs. To avert such situations, earnings need to be considered seriously to make life easier for people.
Intra and inter religious differences should be solved through proper dialogue without featuring any of the parties on the national television, which I consider unprofessional and embarrassing.
Are we in short of experience personnel or technocrats? At times when one watches our only television station, your may cry of shame, sue to the types of programmes and news that appear on the television screen. Thirty minutes news is insufficient for the population and there is need for an increase of the national news through the length and breath of the country.
However, the national television should make efforts to get to reach out to the people, create a vox pop and oral testimonies, by talking with the people on issues affecting their socio-economic life and their opinions of solutions to societal problems.
Did our leaders not put the cart before the horse? I believe this is the reality of our present situation. NEA environmental legislation – the Littering Act is draconian, unjust and untimely. NEA should have look into waste management and control before coming up with such a law. They should consult with the government, local government, municipality and area councils to purchase refuse collection machines or vehicles to collect refuses all over the major cities and towns. The cities and towns are so crowded that people do not have places to dump refuses and where do NEA want people to dump their wastes? NEA should be fair to us; they should revisit their policy. Even the “Operation Clean the Nation” is not properly formulated that’s why it is unsustainable. The cleaning of the nation is paramount to a clean and healthy environment, but to the extent of restricting the movement of people from following their economic needs is unconstitutional, inhuman and uneconomical. People can be allow to go on their normal businesses, but must clean their environment even every forth night and the wastes should be collected the same day.
Tourism sector and all other sectors must be scrutinised on their mode of operations in order to pave more ways for vibrant economy. The state should avoid allocating vast land to so called foreign investors and provide affordable plot of land for residence to civil servants and those who do not get one and facilitate the reduction of rental fees of houses by land lords.
As citizens of a sovereign state, there is no doubt in mind that our able leaders will listen and hear every patriotic Gambian give it a better thought without prejudice. Our resolution for 2011 is borrowed from one of the greatest American presidents Abraham Lincoln.
In his second inaugural address of America Lincoln said: “Malice to none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for his widow, and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations”. This is the 2011 resolution of Education in-depth. We wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year with many more successes characterised by attitudinal changes.