Saiks,
Thanks for this critique. It is sad that in this day and time, a Gambian or 
an African intellectual will so narrow mindedly analyse a national situation 
in such a poor taste. The starting point for any development is freedom. If 
a nation lacks that it lacks thinking towards any meaningful strategy 
towards progress.

the author failed to understand that the so-called states in Africa are 
privatized states, where in most cases to even is think is a crime. To blame 
our poor workers in a such a state for not performing or suffering from "bad 
attitudes to work" is an other form of intellectual escapism.

Let the author understand that the failure of any system or society lies 
with the leadership. Only backward leaderships reproduce backward systems. 
The good thing about the article however is that it shows the abstract 
mindedness  our intellectuals continue suffer from. The disease is a legacy 
of our colonial educational systems still prevailing in our countries.

You have done the job, so I have nothing to add.


>From: samateh saikou <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Fwd: Gambian attitude towards work: The Genesis of 
>underdevelopment
>Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:31:09 +0100
>
>.........books did not teach and educated man did not know reasons for the 
>workingmen's behavior.    Joseph Dorfma  (  The economic mind in American 
>Civilisation VOL 111 (1865-1914)
>
>
>At first I intend to ignore this provocative article but happen to say to 
>my self that then I might be doing an injustice not only to the hard 
>working Gambians but also Gambians who died fighting for a better 
>society,justice for all ,against the hunger,absolute poverty and brutality 
>that decent and hard working Gambians are faced with daily.I might at this 
>moment even argue that this article is  an insult to our intelligence,our 
>common effort to  survived under very hard condition,no matter what the 
>intention of the author,it is our humanity that is put under the firing 
>line.Listen to this..
>
>"Time  and again I do hear management gurus saying that a
>good worker creates more work  in an efficient and effective way. However, 
>if
>this is to be applied to the  Gambia, then we are thousands of miles away 
>from
>having good workers because the  minority of good   workers in the Gambia 
>today
>have been heavily  overshadowed by the bad workers and there efforts
>neutralised, thus making it  very difficult to distinguish the good from 
>the bad
>and the bad from the ugly."
>
>I will come back to this but let me make one thing clear here with regards 
>to  this statement ;
>
>"But then I will ask you who the government is? Does it not constitute  our 
>fathers,
>mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, friends and acquaintances? And  if 
>this
>is the case then are we not part of the government? The point here is  that 
>we
>must stop using the government as a scapegoat for everything that is  wrong
>and for the failings of our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends  
>and
>ourselves.."
>
>I am taking this personally and in defence of the collective,having the 
>liberty of not only accusing my father,,my mother,my brothers,my sisters 
>etc of being part of  a  Government whose military goes on the rampage, 
>murdering innocent students  for demanding to see justice done.Policing the 
>building of a nation where press houses are put on fire for speaking 
>against the suffering of ordinary people is the most horrendous political 
>analysis  I have ever seen or heard.This Government is for it self, very 
>distant from the aspirations and dreams of the Gambian people and nations.
>Let me return to the first quotation I made.The majority of the Gambian 
>workers are good workers,decent ,loyal to their country and hard 
>working,even a primary school student will be able to tell who they are and 
>what they constitute in our society.Any development theory that ignores 
>their plight is not a serious one.Any development theory that ignores the 
>fact that a nation,with more than 70% of its work force being farmers and 
>yet still could not feed its people and continue to live in absolute 
>poverty and decadency belongs to the dustbin.It is here the creation of 
>value begins in the Gambia and not in the offices.
>
>"; I see people forming their own chitchat forums mainly
>full of gossips,  slandering and backbiting; I see people using what 
>belongs to
>the offices for  their own personal gains; I see people playing music and
>dancing; I see people  trying to make love in the office; I see people 
>signing
>in and in a matter of  seconds signing out for the rest of the day;"
>
>What a petty mind,I would have love to know in which Gambian office workers 
>play music ,sing and dance.This is not true and yes should they leave their 
>office before closing time,which in most cases is true,does that constitute 
>the fact that they are bad workers.Why not question the reason rather than 
>assuming that is bad attitude to work.The majority of office worker cannot 
>even life from " hand to mouth" as the saying goes,the day Gambian workers 
>are able to live from hand to mouth  will be a great  day for the Gambian 
>nation.These are people who struggle to even have transport fares to go to 
>to work let alone feed their children for 10 days with their salaries and 
>still you expect them to sit in office concentrate on their jobs and not 
>thinking of their hungry children at home and refused to think that they 
>have  electricity bill to pay.Demanding such loyalty to poor and hard 
>working people is an insult to their intelligence.They know they work more 
>than the hours they are paid for and who are we to tell them to be loyal in 
>doing the paper work for a government that cannot even provide wound 
>dressing in their hospitals let alone decent bed sheets in their 
>hospitals.Yes we have seen Directors in our TVs,read about them in our 
>Newspapers kneeling in front of the President begging to be forgiven,yes we 
>have seen top ranking officers  running around political meetings,even if 
>they dont want to be there,taking part in "set settals" even if they dont 
>want to be there,these are the minorities you will find in their offices 
>doing their 8 hours,will they dare play music,dance and sing in their 
>offices.If these are the "good Workers" of the Gambian,yes then we have a 
>long way to go.
>
>
>"It will be very unwise of  me to claim that my solution or alternative is 
>universal
>and that it is the only  solution. In fact what I am about to offer is not 
>a
>means to an end nor is it a  beginning to an end. All it will do will be to
>create a beginning to the  magnetisation of other ideas and thoughts for a 
>way
>forward."
>
>A way forward for the development of any nation cannot be "
>universal",it must be specific to the concrete conditions of that 
>nation.Where you have to start is to answer this mysterious question, why 
>in this modern world more than half of a nation work force are farmers.If 
>you cannot start from here any other suggestions might just be another 
>recycled idea and precisely this is what we have seen here.
>
>"First of all, a needs analysis  needs to be conducted in every department, 
>para-statal, and also
>in the civil  service, using the matrix analysis framework. It so happens 
>that
>most offices  and departments are overloaded with people who needn’t be
>there, thus causing a  limbo in operations particularly cost. Most people 
>in
>organisations, departments  and offices don’t even have a job description 
>and
>don’t
>play any roles within  their organisations or departments."
>
>Commodification of toilet cleaning,lets just go. Perhaps you might 
>forget,but when the criminal financial institution,the IMF,invaded our dear 
>nation,this was the lies they paraded.Teachers,public Works Department 
>workers,office Workers in central government were all shown the door.A 
>catastrophic move that our nation never recovered from and the consequences 
>that produces this APRC regime,from the cooking pot right into the burning 
>fire.You dont  start the development of  a nation by showing the people the 
>door,you have to appreciate their effort and reward them for what they are 
>doing so that they can concentrate on their assignments.But these text 
>books development study ideas will continue to ruin the most gifted among 
>us and continue to deepen our sufferings.Even with good intentions,our book 
>men struggle to  liberate their minds  in the midst of this most tradegic 
>moment of our  lives and history.Without any solution,ordinary people are 
>blamed for their own suffering,under development,hunger and absolute 
>poverty,whiles the state/government is encourage to become even more crude 
>and brutal.
>
>"Here I am not talking about the  ‘police organisation’ or the 
>‘CCTV’
>organisation where freedom to be innovative  or creative is restraint and 
>where
>people’s privacy is invaded under the pretext  of organisational policies 
>and
>procedures. Rather I am referring to systems that  will lay solid 
>foundations
>for work ethic and professionalism, thus allowing  people to work 
>professionally
>but also be held responsible for their actions. I  am not also talking 
>about
>systems that will condone the blame culture or  bureaucracy, but systems 
>that
>will promote transparency, efficiency and  effectiveness"
>
>But the next paragraph to this spells out the same bureaucratic mentality 
>that criminalize the workers,chained their minds and refused to recognised 
>their ideas.No where in this world have yet seen where polices and 
>procedures of governmental orgainisations takes into account the ideas of 
>those expected to know the policies and carry them out according to the 
>define procedures.If a cleaner is even to be added to it,this bureaucratic 
>control will not in the short term, face its own limitations but will soon  
>end up putting up the CCTV cameras and the Sana Saballys in front of the 
>office doors.Read this;
>
>"I am talking about systems that will ensure that even the  organisation or 
>department driver or
>cleaner knows the strategic objectives of  the organisation/department and 
>know
>how their roles contribute to the overall  attainment of the strategic 
>goals."
>
>The energy and resources that one might use to tell the cleaner that it is 
>important to clean this toilet properly so that no one  gets infected 
>because of unhygienic condition or to tell the driver to keep driving 
>safely so that non of the office workers get involved in an  accident is 
>among the theories that have resulted in the commodification of our health 
>care,our education,our communal lands,they did not work even in the nations 
>with the wealth ,the energy and resources.They become models on papers and 
>are dusted up in times of quality control auditing,in reality,they chained 
>the creativity of individuals and sending people from one job to the other 
>and never settling down in one job.
>unless we understand and accept that the human being,is not only creative 
>in doing things but also have the brain to think,unless we start to ask the 
>Cleaner,the driver what do they think, in their opinion,how this 
>organisation can achieve its goal,bearing in  mind their own 
>contribution,they will rightly think their role is to clean and go.Whether 
>the toilet is clean enough or not becomes a subjective issue between the 
>boss and cleaner.
>
>"but because they simply  lick the backside of the ‘boss’. This has 
>created a
>phenomenon where the ‘boss’  becomes the hungry predator searching for 
>its
>preys in the vast ocean of  opportunism, eventually turning the employees 
>into
>opportunistic preys. Thus you  will have to do everything the boss says or 
>else
>you be held in solitary  confinement where you will never see the beaming 
>rays
>of training and  development."
>
>Now it is no more the office worker,it is the boss, and not in "Vast ocean" 
>of hunger and poverty but "of opportunism",but then should I also ask , if 
>it is  the "boss"  who  asked the office worker to sing and dance in the 
>office or to go to  kololi village to see if the contractors are using  all 
>the cements for the new house and not selling them and or the driver is not 
>ask to drop the kids and collect the Madam from the hair dresser.If all is 
>rotten and bad,why change or modify and not uprooting the whole system and 
>put into place a system that recognises work as  a way of life  to achieve 
>the best out of every good citizen aspiring to contribute to the 
>development of our dear nation.
>See how the Gambian village functions,with all the poverty,no 
>electricity,no running water but they manage to co-exist,have collective 
>responsibility for not only the life cattle in the village but also the 
>collective hunger and humiliation.A conscious understanding of our own 
>reality is enough lead as the way forward.Fanon said that our tragedy stems 
>from among other things that our book men,because of their laziness and 
>cowardice do not learn to understand our own reality and you cant develop a 
>nation without understanding the economic and political  realities of that 
>nation.
>As some one also mention that his friend ,who is an entrepreneur,is 
>contemplating to employ migrants because of the bad attitude of Gambian 
>workers.This is as if I heard the American farmers saying they will prefer 
>Mexican migrant workers to native born Americans,or the Norwegian,English 
>saying they will prefer employing Polish migrants rather than the 
>native.The realities of the two is always different,you go for the migrant 
>worker because of your economic interest,they are always cheap ,the migrant 
>has no school fees to pay,no house to repair,no Tabaski lam to sacrifice,no 
>bag of rice to send to uncle in Bani.Their economic realities are 
>different.The one is accumulating the "Kemalo" and the other one is always 
>looking for extra income.
>
>For Freedom
>Saiks
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>From: [log in to unmask]
>>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list              
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Fwd: Gambian attitude towards work: The Genesis of 
>>underdevelopment
>>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:33:54 EDT
>>
>>Very thought provoking piece from the pages of The Gambia Journal
>>
>>Letter To The Editor
>>
>>Gambian attitude towards work: The  Genesis of underdevelopment
>>By Abdoulie Sallah
>>Apr 11, 2007, 14:19
>>
>>Sometimes you tend to  wonder why a country so promising and full of
>>potentials is failing the dynamics  of development. In most cases one is 
>>tempted to
>>think that there are limited  resources to trigger socio-economic 
>>development.
>>But then I tend to pose the  question what if the Gambia a small but great
>>country was endowed with more  resources? Was this equation going to 
>>create more
>>socio-economic opportunities  and advancement or was it going to be a
>>catastrophic downturn? Conventional  wisdom will opine that if you cannot 
>>efficiently
>>and effectively manage a  village, then how can you be expected to manage 
>>a
>>city? The bottom-line argument  here is that if one’s attitude towards 
>>the
>>management of small resources is  lackadaisical and dysfunctional, then 
>>how is it
>>expected of one to manage bigger  resources?  A wiseman once stated that 
>>‘a
>>vision without an action is a  mere dream and an action without a vision 
>>is a waste
>>’ but I will rephrase this  and say that great skills, expertise and
>>experience without appropriate  execution is a waste and a means to 
>>self-destruction.
>>This been said, I am not  unmindful that the Gambia has produced and will
>>continue to produce very  hardworking sons who will always remain a source 
>>of
>>inspiration to future  generations.
>>A significant root to the development of underdevelopment in the  Gambia 
>>can
>>be traced back to the attitude of most of its workforce. Have you  ever
>>wondered why almost 60% of the employable population still remain  
>>unemployed and
>>why nearly 70% of the population are depending on 30% of the  population? 
>>Most
>>people will tell me well the government of the day is not doing  enough. 
>>But
>>then I will ask you who the government is? Does it not constitute  our 
>>fathers,
>>mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, friends and acquaintances? And  if 
>>this
>>is the case then are we not part of the government? The point here is  
>>that we
>>must stop using the government as a scapegoat for everything that is  
>>wrong
>>and for the failings of our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends  
>>and
>>ourselves. Malcolm X the great civil right activist once stated that 
>>‘you
>>cannot be blind with patriotism so much so that you cannot face reality, 
>>wrong  is
>>wrong no matter who does it or says it’. Henceforth we as Gambians need 
>>to
>>take a critical look at ourselves and re-evaluate our contributions 
>>towards the
>>dynamics of underdevelopment in our great and noble motherland and the 
>>first
>>and  foremost thing we need to take a hard look at is the attitude of the
>>workforce.  The attitude we have towards work will determine how 
>>successful we
>>become as a  nation because even if we have everything by our side and 
>>don’t
>>possess the  right attitude we will still fail. Even the expectation of a 
>>divine
>>intervention  will not help without the right attitude because over and 
>>over
>>again we do hear  the adage ‘God only help those who help themselves’ 
>>and God
>>Himself has  mentioned in the Qu’ran that He will not change the 
>>condition of a
>>nation  (people) until they change it for themselves or make an effort to
>>change it.
>>It is now time to call a spade a spade. Although there are pockets of
>>individuals who are very hardworking, honest, disciplined and sincere, 
>>however I
>>will not hesitate to say that most officials and ordinary people are very 
>>lazy,
>>dishonest, undisciplined, and greedy and lack dignity and integrity. They
>>have  no concept of direction and advancement and are thus sent wallowing 
>>into
>>the  ocean of opportunism by the winds of materialism. Have you ever 
>>taking time
>>to  visit offices during working hours in the civil service, government
>>departments  and para-statals? You will be surprise at what you see or may 
>>be not
>>because you  may have been groomed by this system. Whilst you may find a 
>>very
>>sizeable amount  of hardworking people stick to their desks proving very
>>productive, the majority  are usually found wondering in Alice’s land. 
>>What do I see
>>upon visiting  offices? Well I see people sleeping in their offices when 
>>they
>>should be  working; I see people forming their own chitchat forums mainly
>>full of gossips,  slandering and backbiting; I see people using what 
>>belongs to
>>the offices for  their own personal gains; I see people playing music and
>>dancing; I see people  trying to make love in the office; I see people 
>>signing in
>>and in a matter of  seconds signing out for the rest of the day; I see 
>>people
>>been abuse even though  they are the righteous ones; I see people who have 
>>no
>>responsibilities other  than going from office door to office door just 
>>lying
>>and seeking favours; I see  people who cannot even spell their names 
>>occupying
>>positions of responsibilities  and authority because they are the wives,
>>daughters, sons, brothers and sisters  of the ‘big’ people; I see 
>>people with no
>>job roles; I see people abusing the  trust and confidence of the Gambian
>>people; I see people who make themselves so  inaccessible to other people 
>>even
>>though they are there to serve the needs of  those people; I see people 
>>who condemn
>>injustice during the day and condone it  during the night; and I see much
>>more.
>>Has is ever happened to you when you  were the most qualified person for 
>>the
>>job but because you have no contacts or  coming from a poor family 
>>background,
>>you lost the job? Has it ever happened to  you when you were due for
>>promotion due hard work and merit but because someone  is affiliated with 
>>a party or
>>an individual, they get the promotion? Have you  ever been dismissed for
>>telling the truth? Have you ever worked in an office  where it is a taboo 
>>to
>>challenge decisions, be rationale about ideas and be  truthful about 
>>reality? Have
>>you ever been isolated, discriminated and harassed  because you work hard,
>>because you are disciplined, because you are sincere,  because you are 
>>honest and
>>because you want to see justice and transparency?  Have you ever been
>>blacklisted, defamed or caricatured because you try to be  creative and 
>>innovative
>>about you job?
>>Today the culture of the workforce in  the Gambia is castrating 
>>development
>>and causing an impotence to progress.  Nowadays you will have to know 
>>somebody
>>or have a contact to get the job done or  have a transaction successfully
>>completed. There is a lack of professional code  of conduct and even if 
>>there is
>>any, then people override it and use it to their  own advantage- that is
>>getting favours from each other. One day whilst in the  Gambia having a 
>>discussion
>>with a friend of mine, he related a very sad story  about a woman. This 
>>poor
>>woman from the province area (around Central River  Region) sadly lost her
>>husband who had served the Gambia all throughout his  life. All she needed 
>>was the
>>pension of her husband to maintain the family. She  came all the way to 
>>Banjul
>>for this simple transaction, which probably should  not have taken even a
>>week. Unfortunately for her she was referred to different  departments 
>>before
>>been finally redirected to the department she started from.  Her case was 
>>dragged
>>for over three months and as if this was not enough it was  not still
>>resolved. It was a friend of the woman who new my friend that asked my  
>>friend to
>>help the woman even though my friend was in a totally separate  
>>department. He
>>knew somebody in the other department and asked that individual  to help 
>>the
>>poor woman’s case and afterwards it took less than a week for the  woman 
>>to get
>>what was entitled to her.  Why should this be the norm? Why  does she have 
>>to
>>suffer before claiming what was entitled to her? Why should it  take 
>>longer
>>than usual to resolve her case? Why should it be a favour for her  case to 
>>be
>>sorted? What would have been her fate if no one tried to help her?  And 
>>just how
>>long would it have taken after the three months to get her case  sorted 
>>out
>>without any form of intervention?
>>This situation  reflects an undesired metamorphosis of socio-economic
>>development supported by  the pillars of venomous social reassurances. In 
>>a very
>>intensely competitive  world, gone are the days when you will sit and just 
>>do what
>>you have been asked  to do without involving any form of innovation and
>>creativity and going that  extra mile to explore other avenues in order to 
>>create
>>more opportunities. Time  and again I do hear management gurus saying that 
>>a
>>good worker creates more work  in an efficient and effective way. However, 
>>if
>>this is to be applied to the  Gambia, then we are thousands of miles away 
>>from
>>having good workers because the  minority of good   workers in the Gambia 
>>today
>>have been heavily  overshadowed by the bad workers and there efforts
>>neutralised, thus making it  very difficult to distinguish the good from 
>>the bad and
>>the bad from the ugly.  Our attitude towards work should not be about 
>>sitting
>>down and waiting to be  told what to do and when to do it, instead it 
>>should be
>>one that is proactive;  one that is target driven and success oriented; it
>>should be one that is  action-oriented and disciplined.
>>
>>The way forward
>>I have always told  people and my students that whenever you criticise
>>people, systems or  ideologies, don’t leave them hanging like that 
>>because it will
>>cause you to be a  victim of the very thing you criticise, thus offer
>>constructive alternatives.  This is exactly what I intend to do in this 
>>section. It
>>will be very unwise of  me to claim that my solution or alternative is 
>>universal
>>and that it is the only  solution. In fact what I am about to offer is not 
>>a
>>means to an end nor is it a  beginning to an end. All it will do will be 
>>to
>>create a beginning to the  magnetisation of other ideas and thoughts for a 
>>way
>>forward.
>>Undoubtedly  change will be the foremost thing to be put into the equation
>>and not only  change but a change that is swift and radical. First of all, 
>>a
>>needs analysis  needs to be conducted in every department, para-statal, 
>>and also
>>in the civil  service, using the matrix analysis framework. It so happens 
>>that
>>most offices  and departments are overloaded with people who needn’t be
>>there, thus causing a  limbo in operations particularly cost. Most people 
>>in
>>organisations, departments  and offices don’t even have a job 
>>description and don’t
>>play any roles within  their organisations or departments. Conducting 
>>needs
>>analysis will enable  organisations and departments to identify their
>>resources, and the quality and  quantity of the personnel they would need 
>>to operate.
>>People only become idle  and lazy when they have absolutely nothing to do 
>>or
>>think about. People should  have enough work to keep them busy for the 
>>required
>>number of hours they are  expected to stay in their offices and not having 
>>to
>>stay in their offices for  eight hours just to be given a ten minute piece 
>>of
>>work for the whole day. The  needs analysis will also weed out the 
>>unwanted
>>people thereby saving cost for  the departments and organisations. 
>>Although this
>>may be seen as harsh and a  repetition of the retrenchment of workers as 
>>in
>>the days of the Economic  Recovery Programme, however the difference is 
>>that
>>cost saved will be reinvested  into the best, most qualified and 
>>hardworking
>>workers instead of repaying debts.  In addition, this will create a very
>>competitive atmosphere where people will  learn to value their jobs and 
>>always want to
>>make a difference in the workplace.  Similarly, conventional wisdom on
>>motivation will reveal that the better the  people are paid, developed and 
>>given the
>>right resources, the more likely they  will excel and bring about desired
>>results.
>>In addition, another mechanism  that can be used to overcome the Gambian
>>attitude or work culture is the  introduction of systems that will monitor 
>>and
>>hold accountable each and every  individual within organisations and 
>>departments.
>>Here I am not talking about the  ‘police organisation’ or the 
>>‘CCTV’
>>organisation where freedom to be innovative  or creative is restraint and 
>>where
>>people’s privacy is invaded under the pretext  of organisational 
>>policies and
>>procedures. Rather I am referring to systems that  will lay solid 
>>foundations for
>>work ethic and professionalism, thus allowing  people to work 
>>professionally
>>but also be held responsible for their actions. I  am not also talking 
>>about
>>systems that will condone the blame culture or  bureaucracy, but systems 
>>that
>>will promote transparency, efficiency and  effectiveness. I am talking 
>>about
>>systems that will ensure that even the  organisation or department driver 
>>or
>>cleaner knows the strategic objectives of  the organisation/department and 
>>know
>>how their roles contribute to the overall  attainment of the strategic 
>>goals. It
>>is sad to note that even most middle level  managers in the Gambia know
>>neither the mission nor the objectives of their  respective organisations. 
>>How then
>>does one expect them to perform meaningfully  towards the achievement of 
>>such
>>objectives? What has happened to performance  management? What has 
>>happened
>>to employee development review? What has happened  to employee 
>>supervision?
>>What has happened to employee mentoring? What has  happened to appraisal? 
>>How
>>many of these systems are fully and regularly  utilised? Well if people 
>>don’t
>>have the technical know-how, how can they be  expected to do it? This 
>>leads me to
>>my next point.
>>Capacity building or  development always proves to be very valuable.
>>Developing the expertise and  technical know-how of your employees is an 
>>investment
>>worthwhile both in the  short and long runs. Unfortunately in the Gambia 
>>this
>>valuable area of  investment is abused and totally alienated. It is the 
>>norm and
>>practice in  Gambian departments and organisations that capacity building 
>>and
>>development is  used as a mechanism for seeking and returning favours. 
>>People
>>are nowadays sent  to trainings, workshops, seminars, conferences, and
>>further studies not because  they are the most suitable and qualified 
>>individuals,
>>but because they simply  lick the backside of the ‘boss’. This has 
>>created a
>>phenomenon where the ‘boss’  becomes the hungry predator searching for 
>>its
>>preys in the vast ocean of  opportunism, eventually turning the employees 
>>into
>>opportunistic preys. Thus you  will have to do everything the boss says or 
>>else
>>you be held in solitary  confinement where you will never see the beaming 
>>rays
>>of training and  development. Another criteria for eligibility that is
>>usually considered when it  comes to training and development is personal
>>affiliation with the ‘big boss’ or  the ‘bigger boss’. Sometimes 
>>the boss, the big
>>boss and the bigger boss are so  greedy that they let nothing leak down to 
>>the
>>underdogs, even though they may  not need it but because of the allowances 
>>and
>>par-diems attached.  Recommendations for further training and development 
>>must
>>be critically assessed  and attached to the needs of the organisation or
>>department. Robust selection  criteria that are open and transparent must 
>>be put in
>>place allowing little or  no space for managerial discretion. May be 
>>having a
>>selection committee  comprising of sections of the organisation or 
>>department
>>will not be a bad idea.  The purpose of this committee will be to 
>>scrutinise
>>proposals coming from senior  management with reference to training and
>>development and scan selected  individuals against set criteria. This is 
>>neither
>>bureaucracy nor work  overloading, it is simply accountability.
>>Finally, a new approach towards  public management must be introduced; one
>>that is independent and free from  politicisation; one that is very 
>>competitive
>>and customer oriented; one that  involves consultation with the very 
>>people
>>whose needs need to be served; one  that is target driven; and one that is
>>accountable to all stakeholders. I do not  mean privatisation here but 
>>something
>>like a competitive and non-commodified  alternative to capitalist 
>>corporations
>>who are target driven and profit  oriented. The delivery of public 
>>services
>>must be measured, planned, evaluated  and above all accounted for. I am 
>>not
>>saying that it is wrong to do favours for  people, but it must not be the
>>foundation for professionalism and certainly not  the corner stone for the 
>>delivery of
>>public services.
>>The Gambia is a small  and peaceful country that has social values. Social
>>systems are good for  development and as a result must be valued and 
>>treasured.
>>I am saying we must  learn to help each other; I am saying we must learn 
>>to
>>lend a hand; I am saying  we must learn to support each other; I am saying 
>>we
>>must change our attitude  towards work if we are to reach the pinnacle of
>>advancement; I am saying we must  not base our decisions and work ethics 
>>on social
>>delusions but rather on  informed rationality guided by a sense of social
>>justice.
>>
>>By
>>Abdoulie Sallah
>>PhD  Student
>>University of Leicester School of Management (UK)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>************************************** See what's free at 
>>http://www.aol.com.
>>
>>
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