Michael Porter; a Harvard professor and one
of the preeminent strategic thinkers of this century; argued in his renowned
work on the competitiveness of nations that; governments don’t create wealth
but their proper role is to provide an enabling environment for businesses to
flourish.
“National prosperity is created, not
inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labour
pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value,
nation’s competitiveness depends on the
capacity of its Industries to upgrade and innovate”.
He demonstrated his theory in strategic
diamond. According to my lecturer, “endowment with static resources like oil,
minerals etc. hardly create sustainable economic development but dynamic
resources like human capital do”. He compared Singapore, Japan and south Korea
which were poor in static resources but rich in human capital and African
countries with huge static resources yet after 50 years of post-colonial rule,
they are still thirsty and hungry in the mist of huge water and minerals
resources. What was went wrong and what is wrong now.
Should it be a nation’s preoccupation to
create wealth, jobs for its citizens. Nay it should facilitate enterprise,
inject a sense of entrepreneurship, equipped its population with vital skills
and education, institutions that protect property rights, transport and
communication amenities that facilitate free movement of goods and services,
went on the professor.
Coalition government and indeed Gambian
citizens at this auspicious juncture, should look into the mirror and
critically ask what went wrong in
the past 52 years of post-independence.
I mean some kind of introspection on the deeper courses of our retarded
development.
Why in GDP raking of 190 countries of the
world, for the year 2016, Gambia rank 178, even bellow Guinea Bissau which was
beset by a long period of instability. Also in the Human Development Index(HDI)
released on 17th March 2017, Gambia ranked 175 with a score of 0.44. Why after
52 years of independence a simple infrastructure, good roads and river
transportation, uninterrupted country-wide water & electricity supply,
effective waste management system remained so staggeringly elusive. Literally
unachievable by a country with good geography and resource potential, equipped
with human capital; a gem that countries ahead of us in the development index
lagged. It’s mind-boggling to say the
least. But why fellow country folks; do we deserves such a jaundice achievement
as country for 52 years in a Gambia with so much human Capital, a navigable
river, fertile land and good geographic location. Beloveds we as people need to
look into the mirror of our conscience.
You can call it self-evaluation or
appraisal, our coalition leadership, to start with; need to chart where we
were, where we are and where we want to be as a nation. Finally how do we get to where we want to be.
From strategic perspective, this is termed
SWOT analysis, which entail identifying our Strengths and Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats.
At the end of a SWOT analyses they should
identify what are our key competence and weakness as a nation and dedicate
themselves to consolidate those strengths and improve on our weakness.
I do not wish to indulge myself “SWOTing”
Gambia as nation in this article, I will leave that to our strategy pundits,
our professors and great minds.
After identifying our strategic competences
and weakness, the next stage is mapping out a strategic vision, goals, tangible
objectives and effective tactics; inherently, to knit and steer all these
tasks, requires stewardship of a visionary leadership.
President Barrow has unique opportunity to
capture the mantle of visionary leadership and move the Gambia on a
developmental ladder. A unique opportunity given the massive support he enjoys
at the moment; the financial packages promised by EU; curbing wasteful
government spending and if not most importantly, tap the potential of Gambia
diaspora- their human capacities in terms of skills, investment and
connections.
He also has the opportunity for an
effective reorganisation and re-orientation of parastatals like Gamtel, GPA,
SSHFC etc. so that the huge revenues they donated into wasteful programmes
under Jammeh regime are now channelled into Public/Private/Parastatal
partnership that will invite them to invest into infrastructural investments.
Example Gamtel, GPA, SSHFC will invest into building roads, bridges,
electricity and water, they can recover their investment through toll charges
for using the roads and bridges, through ticketing over a period of time etc.
The parastatals can play a vital role in Gambia infrastructural building if
they are remodelled on parastatal/government partnership but under Jammeh
regime, revelations that emerged after his defeat show the above big parastatals
wasted huge revenues on useless programmes at bidding of Jammeh government.
Gambia truly need a visionary leadership. A
leadership that has a vision where it want Gambia to be in next 20 years and
formulate a coherent strategy, programs and institutional modernisation to
achieve its vision.
Sir
Dawda was a great leader, Democrat and a human right advocate but I seldom
wonder whether he had tangible socio-economic vision for the Gambia as Gambia
never had a good road system, no good electricity supply, no good education
system, hospitals, reliable transport system for his 33 year rule. The
Singapore dream was a good shot; promulgated by Former Finance Minister B B
Darboe, however there was little documented evidence of its implementation and
its achievements, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone posit that it ever
remained a dream or perhaps hijacked by subsequent events.
We need selfless leaders whose personal
ambition and interest is subservient to national interest; leaders who will
channel their energies faithfully to engage it’s citizens to be become vehicles
of national development instead of imposing themselves a Lords.
A
visionary leader has a clear idea of his goals and set out clear and
quantitative objectives to achieve them. He does not schemed to be loved or
feared but seek to earned the love of his country folks.
Jammeh wanted to be force-loved and at the
same time be feared; be loved-feared, a contra-distinction or an oxymoron, to
be feared a loved at the same time, and what, an unquestionable loyalty.
A visionary leader will not fight a lone
battle but move the populace with him/her. He/she is a listener, a team
builder, not a team breaker. Effective communicator, forge alliances, networks
to achieve desired results. Such leaders live years after their death and the
shadow of their contributions to national development abide for long in the
mind of his people and in the pages of history.
The Gambia is small country that can be
easily developed. The coalition government has according their MOU a three-year
mandate and thus lack luxury of time. As a matter of political expedience it
need to focus our meagre resources on areas of the economy where the great
strategic impact can be made. It only need to set clear achievable goals and
objectives.
I
will agree more with a person who state that, first goals of the coalition should be:
• Goal-provide
high quality road and river transportation system and
• objective-construct
or provide an excellent road network from Banjul to Koina on either side of the
river within 3 years. Meaning a high- quality road from Barra to
Farafeni(through hakalang and Jokadu) to
Kuntaur, to Sandu to Basse to Fatoto and from Brikama to soma to Basse.
• Tactics-use
Public-Private-Partnership, encourage Foreign Direct Investment from
international infrastructural development companies.
If you ask any Gambia what should be the
most important area of development, you will receive varied perspectives
depending on the area, age, sex, or even the sophistication of the person.
The contention that, coalition priority
should be, road and river communication should be given quick and urgent
attention. Goods and services can move quickly with less cost. Two quality
roads, one on either sides of the river, good ferry service and four bridges.
One joining Nuimi to Kombo south (say Nuimi Lamin to Faraba), Bamba Tenda
Bridge, Bansang and finally Basse Bridges.
Imagine a Londer from Fulham, going to
Putney Heath is asked to travel down to Tower bridge to go Putney when he can
just cross Putney Bridge and them home to Putney within 20 minutes. Even more
exhaustive and costly travelling is for a person who live in Badibu and want to
go to Foni or Kiang; when he can just cross river Gambia with a width of less
than 100 metres is less than 20 minutes. Instead, he or she must either go to
Farafeni, cross the Tenda Ba Ferry crossing to Soma and take another transport
to Foni and verse versa. Journey that should take 20minutes will end up taking
perhaps 4 hours. If there is ferry crossing from Badibu to Foni or Badibu, it
will bring great economic benefit, reduce travel cost for people and generally,
ease people living. There are areas of the River Gambia less than 20metres in width which can be
easily bridged yet allow a ship to pass.
This does not mean GPA will lose revenue.
They just need modern revenue collection system like automatic ticketing
machines which the users can buy
tickets at Port Authority
designated locations before travelling or at point of crossing. In UK you can
buy a prepaid tickets to cross Umber bridge and River Severn bridge easily.
These bridges when built will not only
facilitate mobility, enhanced transportation of goods and services but may
potentially reduce urban drifts, it may reduce demand for land in Kombos. If the
Government lack the resources, it can tactically encourage private companies to
build and manage them over period of time to recover their returns on
investment as part of public- private partnership(PPP) model.
Static resources from many studies and experiences
have never been the magic bullet for socio-economic development and in fact in
more than two dozen nations it has been a curse. African nations like Congo,
Sierra Leone, Liberia and even Nigeria, competition for control of static
natural resources wretched havoc, with monumental human and environmental cost.
Unlike dynamic resources, human capital, skills, good stewardship, an enabling
democratic and legal environment, committed, responsible and honest citizenry,
loyal and development-centred leadership; the list goes on.
Leaders come and go but their foot prints,
good or evil stays to either make or break their nations. On ascendancy to
British premiership, former Prime minister Tony Blair famously articulated his
top agenda as “education, education, education” and I read about another prime
minister who on the podium of inauguration emphatically said that three words
will mark his premiership, technology, technology, technology and alas, his
country is one of the beacons of technological advancement and innovation.
As for President Barrow. I don’t think I
would be mistaken if I state that his development priority or agenda lag a
fervent articulation and if I were wrong, I guess it hasn’t captured the
imagination of the population.
Road and river communication, a 24-hour
uninterrupted power and water supply are sacrosanct to Gambia’s development
trajectory gaining a strong foundation yet it remained an illusion for five
decades. It is mind-boggling and gut-wrenching to quote Peter Mandelson. Development
is not a monolithic process but an overlapping network of supporting programmes
and projects with a clear focus and resourcefulness.
A society’s ethos, civil service and
working community ethics and moral standards can be moulded by the ethos, ethics
and moral standard of its leadership. If the coalition leaders are afflicted by
the disease of material greed, self-perpetuation, nepotism, selfishness and
love grandeur as their predecessors, our country will catastrophically limp on
for another decade. If, however we see signs of a committed, accountable and
development-oriented leadership, the civil service, parastatals and people of
all works of life will put their shoulders to the wheel.
A leader need to be firm yet flexible.
Meaning he know when to be firm and when to be flexible and he lead by example.
He doesn’t expect his people to be honest when he is not honest.
Our current president seem to neatly
exemplify the many lustrous qualities of Sir Dawda and I hope he is a visionary too.
Lamin Darboe
Leicester
