The weakest links:

Even in successful Democracies going through an election process is not a guarantee that will bring about socio-economic development to its citizens. General election by   itself is only a mechanism that will help in peaceful and smooth process of selecting decision makers, and bringing entire populace under the same umbrella. The fundamentals that will give any country the opportunity to build a sound economy and any prospect to be competitive in the global economy is by playing your best players in your team.

During the first republic for anyone to be part of a cabinet, you had to b e politician elected by the voters. This was a draw back because the president was restricted to bring people to the cabinet from a small pool, and they were on average not the most qualify. You must have heard jokes from bunch of these Ministers from yester year, either butchering the English language or reinforcing of their limitations. The second republic under president Jammeh was full of hope and promises, and that amendment in the constitution was really seen as an opportunity to widen the pool and to play the best players in the team. The spirit of the amendment was to take politics out of this decision making, and to utilize our best experts to manage these portfolios

Like everything else under the Jammeh revolution, this one has become another disappointment, and we still failed to play the best people in the team. The bedrock of the Jammeh revolution was to make us more democratic, and amendments like these were signals of better things to come. Yes, indeed, elections we still have every five years, democracy has become more illusive and the promise amendment is still restricted to a small pool of sycophants, political patronage and in most cases not the best players in the team. It will be na鴳e to take the politics from governance, and to expect politicians not to take care of their supporters, but there are indeed lots of ways to do just that. But, if we are ever going to better manage these portfolios, there has to be a paradigm shift in better ways of utilizing these positions. We will indeed continue to leave in the twentieth century if we continue to utilize the weakest links in our team.

Musa JEng

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