The sustainability of any national development endeavour largely depends on the efficiency of the state machinery. The more effective and efficient the state machinery is, the more the public staff submerge self in the service to the national interest and ensure that state resources are maximally utilised.

Against this backdrop, we echo President Jammeh's call for more commitment to national duty during his televised July 22 address to the nation. The president's call is a fundamental necessity as the achievements of national development aspirations would be wishful thinking without greater commitment on the part of Gambians in working for the success and sustainability of our development process.

Already, it is evident that the leadership is not relenting in his efforts to transform this country to a highly develop nation. The citizenry should therefore take the leadership as a mirror and wake up from our siesta and move forward with the demands of development. After all, the country is running against time to meet its targets, and as such we should all come on board with equal commitment, dedication and hard work to ensure that we achieve our collective aspirations.

We hope Gambians would rise to the challenge and realise that development is no ordinary task; it requires the active involvement of all and sundry; besides, society is a system that operates efficiently through the equal functioning of all the sectors, a lapse in one sector easily creates a dysfunction in another and this retards progress.