My second vision statement for transforming KMC into a vibrant KMC economy.

What is System Change?

After effecting a regime change in an extraordinary democratic manner, we will now embark on a system change to consolidate the democratic gains of the New Gambia.

Politics:

Politics is an art of discussion on ideas, philosophy, ideology and democracy. Politics depicts politeness, pluralism, persuasion and culture.

Politics extends its ideological dimension into the field of political economy and its basic tenet of economic development that are argued,experimented and applied in economic systems such as Communism, socialism and capitalism as models of socio-economic development.

Politics is not a war game amongst politicians and militants.

Politicians and militants should primarily see themselves as one big family with divergent ideas, opinions and views vying for the seat of government to administera socio- economic development vision and system for the total benefit of the people they wish to lead.

As such politicians are not war enemies of each other but rather civilize competitors as in a civilized democracy. Just like the Lawyers will vehemently argue their points of law in court rooms but as soon as they emerge from the court room they become the brothers and sisters in society and at home. Politicians and militants should equally behave like civilize lawyers in the competition for election into office.

At this juncture, I must give a mighty big CREDIT to the ex-PPP regime and president Sir Dawda Jawara in particular for embracing and inculcating in us the cardinal tenet of accepting multi-party democracy and political tolerance that never transcend into animosity, insult, destruction and character assassination since independence from colonial rule. Thank you Sir Dada.

These lost values are what we Gambians must endeavor to RESTORE after loosing it from Yaya Jammeh’s brutal dictatorial presidency for 22 years. This is why we Gambians call for restoring a new democratic dispensation into the new Gambia.

Let us STOP the insults in party politics and learn to argue, persuade and convince each other to join or reject a political party as one big family, one people and one destiny. Once we attain this mindset the Gambia will be the winner.

The economy.

My economic philosophy is based on private sector led growth. To unleash the genius of the intelligence of a human being one must reward its creation and innovation. This will make more people to endeavor to work hard, study, createand generate new wealth, new technologies and by extension create more employment, new markets and research development.

The value added generated by these human intelligencesand enterprising developments must in the greater part remain home to generate more added values for more socio-economic development of society in general.

Employment creation, market expansion, products and services delivery are best performed by the private sector. As a former First Vice President of the Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry for two consecutive terms, I know how to promote and encourage enterprising for job creation and wealth creation.

I can therefor transform the KMC municipality into a vibrant economy besides making the environment clean, healthy and beautiful if elected your Mayor.

From 1997 to 2001, I was the national coordinator of the Gambia for the West African Enterprise Network (WEAN) an organization funded by the USAID to help the networking of the private sector entrepreneurs in West Africa.

TheWEAN program availed us the opportunity to know each other in West Africa and develop business relationshipswhich eventually lead to Mr. Nana Ofori Atta of Ghana to access and buy the majority shares of Trust Bank Gambia Ltd. when it was privatized by the Central Bank of the Gambia rescued from the bankrupt Meridian Bank ltd.

Mr. Atta was the national and regional coordinator of the WEAN group in Ghana.

I mentioned the above experiences to expose my private records to the KMC voters so that they know whom they are voting for in the coming mayoral elections.

Employment:

Employment will be my priority and youth employment in particular will take precedence over all other sectors of society in order to reduce the dramatic back way syndrome.

We will create a KMC solar and wind technology institute and will help graduating students to set up small assembly plants to produce wind energy systems in particular or get technical employment in companies specialized in these technology’s production, marketing and sales outlets.

The KMC will also embark on replacing all conventional public street lamps into solar and wind energy in the next four years of my tenure if elected your mayor.

This transformation alone could generate hundreds of employments for the youths who will be graduating from the institution and work as clean energy technicians.

Being a solar technology expert my self, we have installed 57 solar water-pumping systems in villages and 23solar electrification systemsin schools throughout the Gambia under an EC/ACP/CILLS projects from 1993 to 1997.

KMC will also collaborate with the telecommunication companies to offer public Internet Wi-Fi in football fields at cost to users in exchange for tax rebates for GSM companies. For an example if 500Mb was costing D100, users can have the same bundle for D50.

The Internet is no more a luxury.It is a basic necessity in this digital world. The Internet as we know, provides everything one needs to study, educate, research, sell,buy, entertain and make money.

As someone who has evolvein this technology field as well, your next Mayor will make sure the Internet is affordable to public places for the youthto access information. To buttress this point further without bragging the first email that landed in the Gambia landed in my email account whiles using a US Robotics Modem and BBC Micro computer in 1998.

I discovered the Internet back in the US in 1998 whiles attending a conference expo called ISPCON in Baltimore Maryland.The Internet changed the world indeed.

It is against this rich background that I intend to bring about true system change in both politics and economic dispensations if elected your next Mayor of the KMC.

Thank you.

Pa Njie Girigara.