Travelling magistrate Assan Martin has observed that Gambian public institutions and ministries are lacking in requisite leadership capacities, calling on concerned authorities to stop at nothing to address “the challenge facing the nation.”
Magistrate Martin noted that this state of affairs is a serious concern as it could have adverse consequences to the nation’s quest for progress and development. “This is a concern since the incompetence derails and does not bring progress in development,” he stated.
In Martin’s view, several top public officers have displayed incompetence and lack of patriotism leading either to their removal from office after a short spell or rotation within the public services.

Magistrate Assan Martin made this statement when our reporter caught up with him recently in North Bank Region.

Magistrate Martin further lamented that such instances of incompetence on the part of public officials invariably lead to under-performance and, consequently, short tenure of such officials in office. As a result, he said, “there cannot be continuity in policy to run our public institutions.”

“ We have to remember that an under-performed public institution or Ministry can only result to hardship to the general public who are at the receiving end with high expectations to be serviced. Hence we must explore ways to remedy these deficiency of leadership in our institutions and departments,” he asserted.

He said that one way to remedy the situation is to set up a commission (body) that would scrutinise and examine the competency and sincerity of individuals for top public service jobs and also determine whether the person is patriotic enough to run such institution. He maintained that such mechanism would help us obtain effective and efficient leaders to run our public services and institutions.

“ This issue of sincere and competent individuals to lead our public institutions and departments is a great concern and cannot be overlooked since its future implications are that it will result in the damage or demise of an institution. For example GPTC, GPMB etc. and also an under-performed ministry,” he concluded.