Blame The Supervisor

CIVIL servants’ poor performance definitely lies in their weak supervisors, mostly promoted for not having suitably qualified candidates at interviews, so then the next best candidate is appointed.

Most supervisors are very weak in government i.e. not able to control juniors under them to perform as expected. This happens in maybe 80% of ministries. Most don’t care. Ministers don’t question underperformance or complaints; PSes don’t question underperforming results; Chief Control Officers don’t either. So how can performance be up to standard like in private companies? Seriousness should start from the top. Complaints about government are referred back to the same persons being complained about to prepare a response to a letter or accusation, so what do you expect to be the final response to a complainant? There will never be a change in government poor performance in this country. May be Africa is just like that. However there are those who deserve applause but perhaps they only number about 5% in the whole government structure.Some cases are of civil servants who are procedurally employed in offices receiving monthly salaries but without knowing all tasks of that office, e.g. my child was taken to Katutura Hospital casualty in a Municipal ambulance from school after falling unconscious for more than 30 minutes. At casualty her trolley was brought into the ward and placed against a far end wall on instruction and the female doctor on duty was briefed by the ambulance medics about the patient’s problem on arrival. They then took out the oxygen tank and left. I stood next to my child for about 30 minutes without anybody (nurse or doctor) coming to ask/check us. I then just went in the room where the other male doctor was attending to queuing day patients and asked him how long we were to be left there with my child unconscious? It was only then that he informed the lady doctor (who was briefed by ambulance medics when we arrived) that there is a children’s doctor at the children’s section and she then instructed me to push my child to the Paediatric Section. I pushed the bed through two doors to that section and got immediate response and the child was sent for a brain scan. I’m not a nurse but I thought that should have been done on arrival in the casualty ward – the female doctor just had to instruct the ambulance medic to proceed to Paediatric Section for the kid to be attended to by the doctor on duty there, instead of instructing to pull the child’s bed against a wall and leave her there unattended. Very simple.It seems there are no proper procedural guides of doing duties at that Hospital. I wonder if the Hospital Superintendent has ever spent a whole day there unannounced to evaluate why the public is complaining about service at that Hospital, the highest referral hospital in the country? The President should definitely be briefed by someone on what causes poor service in Namibia to take action to minimise this.ElizabethWindhoekNote: Full name and address provided – Ed