Dear Editor,
Your Excellency,
On the Imperative of efficiency, delivery, and accountability in governance
On behalf of the Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice, I wish you a Happy New Year and extend best wishes to you and the people of the Gambia for 2026.
As an organisation, EFSCRJ has dedicated the year 2026 to Empowerment, i.e., empowering citizens to know, claim, and defend their rights, and to demand accountable and result-oriented leadership. This follows our dedication of 2025 to Transparency and Accountability, during which we focused extensively on the conduct of public institutions and officials, raised several governance concerns, and engaged State authorities through activism and advocacy, public statements, information requests, and policy interventions. While some progress was acknowledged, the year also revealed persistent and systemic shortcomings in transparency, accountability, and service delivery across the public sector.
It is in this context of empowerment, reflection, and civic responsibility that I write this open letter. After nine years of your assumption of office, it is appropriate and indeed necessary to reflect honestly on where the country stands, not in terms of announcements or infrastructure counts, but in terms of outcomes, impact, and the lived realities of citizens.
Your government has invested heavily in roads, schools, hospitals, and public institutions. These efforts are visible and acknowledged. However, it must be stated plainly that building infrastructure and creating institutions is the basic duty of any government. The Jawara and Jammeh administrations did the same, as do governments everywhere. Infrastructure, institutions, and services are inputs and outputs; they are not, by themselves, indicators of success.
The true test of leadership lies in whether these investments translate into prosperity, opportunity, quality services, and dignity for citizens. On this measure, the evidence is deeply troubling. After almost 60 years of independence, what defines Gambian society today is not widespread prosperity or affordable, high-quality services, but persistent poverty, unemployment, rising cost of living, weak service delivery, corruption, and abuse of public office. These are not speculative claims. They are documented in official government audit reports, National Assembly findings, and executive reviews, and are further corroborated by investigative journalism and civil society research.
Independent surveys reinforce this reality. A recent Afrobarometer survey states that majority of Gambians lack access to health coverage, while nearly 70 percent express a desire to leave the country due to poor opportunities, services, and living conditions. Corruption indices consistently point to high levels of public sector corruption. These indicators reflect systemic governance weaknesses rather than isolated failures.
Nearly a decade into your presidency, key constitutional and governance commitments remain unfulfilled. There is still no new constitution. Legal and institutional reforms, particularly in the security sector, remain slow, fragmented, and inconsistent. Public institutions routinely fail to comply with laws, procurement rules, and financial regulations, resulting in waste, inefficiency, corruption, and declining service quality. Meanwhile, irregular migration or the Backway has escalated into a national crisis, reflecting deep socioeconomic despair.
This situation persists despite rising national budgets, increased taxation, expanded borrowing, and sustained donor support. Yet prosperity, opportunity, and social mobility do not follow the same trajectory. This raises a fundamental question of governance: why do increased resources fail to produce improved outcomes?
In my view, the answer is clear because The Gambia does not suffer from a lack of resources, knowledge, skills, or policy frameworks. The core problem is the absence of efficiency, effective delivery, and accountability within the public sector. An efficient, professional, and accountable public service is the engine of national development. It enables private-sector growth, protects public resources, and ensures that social services work for citizens. When the public sector is weak, unaccountable, and tolerant of poor performance, the State itself becomes an obstacle to development.
This governance deficit did not begin with your administration, but it remains unresolved under it. The difference between countries that transform and those that stagnate lies not in rhetoric or infrastructure volume, but in the seriousness with which leaders enforce performance, discipline, and accountability. Crucially, the standards of efficiency, delivery, and accountability are already embedded in the 1997 Constitution, laws, regulations, policies, and institutional mandates signed by the Gambia. What is lacking is enforcement and that responsibility rests squarely with the Presidency.
Your Excellency, what the country requires at this stage is not new slogans, new projects, or ceremonial launches. What is required is political will translated into decisive action:
1.        To demand efficiency and performance from public institutions,
2.        To ensure the delivery of mandates in accordance with the law, and
3.        To hold public officials accountable for their decisions, conduct, and results.
Without a deliberate and sustained commitment to efficiency, delivery, and accountability, the State risks remaining a liability rather than an asset thereby mismanaging public wealth while citizens bear the burden through deprivation, unemployment, and lost hope. History demonstrates that where accountability is weak, those who occupy the State benefit disproportionately, while the majority are left behind.
The choice before you is therefore clear: a results-oriented and law-abiding government that empowers citizens and delivers shared prosperity, or the continuation of governance malpractices that reproduce waste, inequality, and despair. The path forward is neither new nor costly, rather it requires the resolve to enforce existing laws and rules and to govern with discipline, integrity, and purpose.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
