The Need For Attitudinal Change

The need for people to change their attitudes is very important if the country wants to attain her development aspirations. The attainment of MDGs, Vision 2020, PRSPs and Silicon Valley cannot and will not be achieved unless we as Gambains change our attitudes and work with clean hands for the development of our motherland.

The development of this country requires the collective responsibility of all and sundry, irrespective of whether one is in the ruling party or opposition.

President Jammeh has said that he will dismiss and employ until he has people who are ready to work for the development of the nation.

"So the broom has not yet even started because I am no longer going to talk every time. Some of these things could have been fixed without me going around to see the problems," he lamented.

"All what they are interested in, is traveling or projects that they can extort money without us knowing it. Those are the sorts of things that they are interested in. But I will set an example. I will dismiss until I have Gambians, who are ready to work and that is the bottom line," the President stressed.

Why should people in authority wait for the President to tell them what to do?

Definitely something urgent must be done. One thing fundamental that must be done is the issue of attitudinal change.

One should honourably resign, if he or she cannot live up to expectations, rather than wait for the President's "electrical broom".

Title goes with responsibility. When people are appointed either as a Minister, Permanent Secretary, Director or whatsoever, he or she must measure up to expectations as they are paid out of taxpayers' money.

Jammeh also expressed big disappointment with the state of the Police Line in Banjul, describing the condition as an "insult". To the Gambian leader, national development is a challenge, but noted that "the challenge becomes less painful if everybody in the entire government system does the work as expected". Such, he stressed, will relieve the pain in national development crusade.

We must also change our attitudes to work. People must report to work on time and close on time.