Tough To Be A CEO
By: James - Via e-mailMANY think that being a head of a State Owned Enterprise is an amazing grace. After all you are a definition of success with fancy lifestyle, beautiful cars, houses in the suburbs and the ability to inspire.
Sounds like the lifestyle you want? Well think again. Being a parastatal boss is not as fancy as you think. My informal research showed that being a parastatal boss is more of a nightmare than a rewarding opportunity. Behind the physical cosmetics that we see every day are people operating in fear who are de-motivated and even operating with little support from the shareholder.
I am a friend of at least five CEOs of SOEs and I am therefore writing from conviction as someone who has inside knowledge. I justify my conviction in the following paragraphs.
Parastatals as they are commonly know were mostly created under the Government’s commercialization policy to spearhead government’s economic drive through efficiency and creating both jobs, economic growth and wealth for the country.
I will leave the debate of whether the parastatals are successful to others. The parastatal bosses are usually appointed by Cabinet on recommendation of the line Ministers. However, the parastatal bosses I spoke to feel they are caught between a rock and a hard place because of the lack of support from the shareholder. Many felt that the real impact of the potential of these parastatals are not really measured therefore there has been no consistency in the funding of the parastatal. Some parastatals get direct funding and others are treated as second class companies, while others are pushed into expensive loans. Most of them said funding is given depending on whether the Minister in question feels the current parastatal head may outshine them and potentially enter the forbidden club of politics. You and I know that anyone with such ambition is a dead man!
Many parastatal bosses feel caught up between many difficult worlds of a Government and its Ministers who don’t know what they want out of different parastatals and who have political ambitions of staying in politics for life and therefore see many CEOs as direct threats; political interference; a staff which feels a sense of entitlement and is therefore difficult to get rid of if there is friction; Labour law and labour leaders that are encouraging low productivity through their action of interference in operations of companies; lack of motivation; no performance measurement for politicians; everyone blaming the parastatal bosses when things go badly; media being too critical, and lack of protection from the system.
My friends also said that many politicians have crafted relationships with ordinary staff members and some Board members for no reason than to undermine the operations and whenever corporate disciplinary action is being taken against such staff member, than a politician jumps in to save them. They said this undermines the situation of achieving organisational objectives.
Another issue mentioned by my friends is the labour laws and labour leaders in the country. Most of them said that the labour laws will eventually bring the country’s economy down as they do not encourage productivity and mostly focus on protection of the workforce at the expense of the company.
Most critically they said while they are held to account in terms of performance, the Ministers they serve are not on performance management systems and can afford to miss deadlines on certain projects. They point to the Nujoma Government when Ministers would run to do things or risk being fired, demoted or rotated. They said when things are going badly they are usually blamed while sometimes the plans they are implementing are sanctioned by Cabinet and many of the politicians and labour leaders are always getting in the way of progress.
When things go badly, politicians see it as an opportunity to bury the CEO’s career and reputation. For example the parastatal bosses felt that every year 90% of the Ministries overspend on their budgets for mostly petty reasons, yet the Ministers are not held to account.
All my friends felt that some of the media groups are there to destroy black CEOs whenever they are making inroads in what was supposedly a ‘white economic sector’. They say the media is used as an attack dog and most politicians follow whatever is being said in the media forgetting that they approved most of those plans in Cabinet. They don’t seem to read documents.
Lastly the parastatal bosses felt that the system does not protect them, their reputation and their career. Instead they feel that their jobs are mostly a waste of time. Many of them felt that they could work somewhere else but chose to work for the parastatal either as a national duty or as part of their loyalty to the governing party, however, they feel the situation has become an unhealthy working environment and departure for them is eminent.
While these were simple opinions expressed by my own friends, it could be that the nation must look at parastatal bosses and the highly stressful environment in which they operate. This may result in a debate and create a situation that will work better for our country. It also raises an important question which is while everybody is watching everybody, who is watching Ministers and holding them to account?
James
Via e-mail
Note: Name and address provided. This letter has been shortened. - Ed