Stewardship: The cruising tool for orbiting effective and efficient national fiscus

My examination of economic history, based on the philosophy of my thought process and my expertise in finance and economics, has led me to believe that 2024 should be a year for pragmatic fiscal responsibility rather than an era of parochial and vested interests in stomach infrastructure in the Gambia's development ecosystem. This belief is premised on the fact that the Gambia's economy should focus on generating long-term economic growth rather than short-termism. In other words, The economy of the Gambia should be driven by effective, sound, and practical foreign investment governance rather than internal spending. As such, we should note that we have a strategic role and a compelling conscience to survive and thrive. In other words, we have a country to build, and our strategic focus should embody the DNA of economic growth and development with a sound, solid, and practical vision where austerity measures are prime while avoiding the schema of expending our public resources on non-essential, negative interactions and wasteful low-hanging fruits of excessive compensation and remuneration packages for our public servants, judicial officials, and NAMs. To put this into context, we must avoid misplaced priorities, as such places us in the dungeons of misallocation and limited resource usage. For example, evidence suggests that the Gambia faces a 4.14% unemployment rate despite decreasing by 0.1 percentage points according to (O'Neil, 2024). In addition, inflation stood at 15 percent (MPC, 2024; GBoS, 2024). This indicates that Gambia's economic growth has stalled in recent years, leading to fewer job opportunities, rising inflationary pressures, and a higher unemployment rate. Further, this suggests that economic growth has led to unbalanced living conditions in The Gambia, which places every household in the extremes of an unbearable situation, witnessing gigantism of consequential proportions by placing every household worse off and struggling to maintain and sustain proper daily meals. In addition, our country has been bedeviled and bewitched by human-induced catastrophes, such as poverty of ideas, food poverty, and inflationary pressures of unintended economic consequences under the guise of men in gray suits", black capitalists playing the "games of thrones" and deceptive politics.

Franklin D Roosevelt poignantly states that progress is not a unit of measurement based on adding more to the baskets of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. Roosevelt's statement is a gentle reminder for office/duty-bearers to govern effectively and ensure equitable distribution of resources that benefits all and sundry. This implies that the governance of our commonwealth of resources should not be pursued through the binary lenses of sharing and slicing the cake for self-serving purposes, as it has the resultant effects of plateaued growth and diminished economic opportunities. In other words, the harsh reality is that the world is going through a tumultuous economic difficulty, and The Gambia, as a resource-poor country amidst the increased security challenges and rising unemployment, is at a crisis-tipping point where transformative-led and compassion-driven leadership across the spectrum of our public and private-sector institutions is critically needed to sail us onto safe waters and land on the steady-steam of thriving hopes and progressive shores.

Based on the issues mentioned above, I suggest the following policy implications:

1.???? Our leaders must put service before self-interest. Grant (2013) states that this is critical as it "helps foster community and trust, encouraging collaboration and support among team members." The author further highlights this strategic importance by drawing a better inference of how this culture of belonging, purpose-driven, and rapport-building culture provides the vision and vessels for motivation and creative energy to exert confidence-building and enhance successful outcomes.?

2.???? To break loose the chains of misplaced priorities responsible for our underdevelopment profile, the government must optimize and effectively utilize its limited resources on well-crafted and engineered development programs that have the prospects of bearing better economic outcomes and returns on investments (ROIs) based on sound, realistic, and intelligent synergistic approaches and strategies to boost national production and human capital development.

3.???? The government must build the architecture of a thriving economic and development model by rolling out an action-oriented ecosystem of programs that promotes creativity and a thriving business climate with the necessary conditions for startups and small businesses to explore the enormous markets of untapped potential in content development, social media marketing, e-commerce, and technology advancement and compete fiercely in a competitive global market.

4.???? ?To exert efficient and effective austerity measures, the government should lead by example, and I suggest the pragmatism of 50% and 30% salary cuts across the country's executive and legislative arms. ?

5.???? The government must fully exploit growth opportunities in our productive sectors [i.e., the fishery, agriculture, and manufacturing). This will enable us to realize sustained economies of scale that propel the wheels of fortunes to sustain our contracted and limited market prospects.

6.???? Revitalize our tourism and services sectors with better ecotourism features and products that create the winds of sustainability and thriving local communities with value-proposition growth and employment opportunities.

7.???? The government must prioritize the needs of young people by investing more in skills-driven and entrepreneurial-led programs and activities to train and mentor them to become valued job creators and be lured into the quagmire of irregular migration or wrestles in the political spectrum as praise singers.

However, this can only materialize through the fortitude of effective stewardship, the ability to learn and adapt, doing the right thing, and openness to feedback for better economic reasoning, rationalization, efficient resource mobilization, allocation, and use of our strategic national assets and capital. In conclusion, the proposed suggestions form the definite basis and the cure for advancing our growth and development prospects.

References

GIEWS Country Brief: Gambia (2024). Retrieved from https://www.relefweb.int

Grant, A. (2013). Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. New York, N.Y/. Viking

Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) – The Central Bank of The Gambia. Retrieved from https://www.cbg.gm/monetary%20Policy%20Committee

O'Neil, A. (2024). Gambia: Unemployment rate from 2004 to 2023. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com

The Gambia – Inflation Rate 1989-2029|Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/525570/inflation-rate-in-gambia

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