GAM WRIT ERS

Of the nine years he had spent in the Civil Service of The Gambia before the achievement of Independence there, thelast four had seen Mr Singhateh in "Middle Manage"ment" of the Colonial Administrative System. To be more precise, he was Executive Officer. It was during this latter period that he attended a Local Government Course at a College of Further Education at Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England in 1963 as follow-up to the Local Government Course he had previously attended at the Institute of Administration at Zaria (now a College of Ahmadu Bello University) in the then Northern Nigeria. A few years later, after he obtained the B.A. (Durham) degree in Philosophy, Public Administration and Ancient History at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone he was appointed into his country's Administrative Service. And several years after that he was appointed Divisional Commissioner (an equivalent of the District Officer) in one of the five Administrative Divisions of The Gambia.

It was from that vantage position, thanks to. the 'generosity' of the British for leaving intact behind them all the files, reports and other documents, that he could see at first-hand how his white predecessors had been operating in that office; in particular how they had been 'playing' politics without an open platform, alongside their day-to-day administration of the Colonies. The Author was also fortunate in the past ten years to have attended in several places outside his native country, The Gambia, seminars some of which touched on either the evolution of the British Colonial Administration or that of the Administrative Service in Metropolitan Britain itself, such as the ABD/ILO Seminar on "Public Enterprises Management" in Abdijan in 1984 or RIPA's on "Management and National Development" in London in 1987 respectively.

Source: blurb!