Political Perspective: Let’s Get To It

EASTER weekend, like the annual December holiday season, provides the chance for hardworking, conscientious members of our society to take a well-earned break, but unfortunately it also means the shirkers will be at it again, taking as much time as they can on either side of the Easter break.

Already, since a few weeks back, e-mails have been circulating with joyous acclaim about the high number of public holidays over Easter and into the month of May, illustrating a worrying tendency on the part of many Namibians to seek excuses not to work. PARLIAMENT, for example, will sit this morning, rather than have an afternoon session as is habitual, because of the Easter weekend.And which MPs, from either the opposition ranks or ruling party, will put up a protest and set an example to the rest of the nation by sitting as they usually do? None, I’m sure.Some will say that Parliament traditionally sits on a Friday morning, rather than afternoon, but this too is only so that people can leave for their weekends sooner rather than later.For the work-oriented few in the country, Easter weekend starts on Friday and not Thursday, and others get no Easter weekend at all! And lest we forget, these public holidays come in addition to an already high allocation of annual leave for Namibians in terms of the Labour Act, of 20 working days! Other countries on the sub-continent are more modest with Mauritius at 16; Swaziland with 12; South Africa 15; Malawi 15 and Lesotho 12.If our people don’t want to work, and look to exploit every opportunity to avoid it, then the productivity of the country as a whole must suffer and the economy cannot grow.Only this week Malaysia’s deputy premier told the country’s civil servants they need to work harder than their seven-hour work days and to condition themselves to seeing work as a virtue rather than a punishment.This probably applies to us even more than it does to Malaysia.”If our minds are set that it is a chore to work, we will treat our work, even the simplest, as a burden,” the Malaysian premier said, adding that if people increased their working hours, this would be to the benefit of the country’s overall productivity.I’m not in favour of exploitation, but I certain advocate a strong work ethic.And I think there’s a happier medium than that which most Namibians exhibit! One would like to emphasise the merits of hard work but unfortunately in many cases these would fall on deaf ears.How does one put across the message that in life it’s generally what you put in, that you get out.Was it JFK who said ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’? Another quote that comes to mind is ‘Striving for success is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted’ and yet another, which may have more resonance simply because financial reward is involved: ‘Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do’.The multiplicity of public holidays, in addition to an already burdensome 20 working days’ leave per year, further exacerbated by people adding on to the public days and weekends, must make serious inroads on Namibia’s productivity as a whole.I am not an economist, but this argument makes perfect sense.There are those who will reject what I’m saying as exaggeration, but I challenge those people still at work when they read this column today to look around them and see just how many of their colleagues have already disappeared from the workplace.This effectively means that whatever was on their desks for completion today, will in all likelihood be postponed until next week Tuesday, or even later.Those same people who take chances will in all likelihood be the first to complain if some of the services they are expecting in whatever sector are not performed to their satisfaction because those officials are on leave or AWOL too! So I simply ask that those who are inclined to exploit public holidays and weekends take these arguments into account.And if they’re the bosses and managers and CEOs, it is even worse, because they should be leading by example.I wish too that our politicians and leadership in public life would address these issues and appeal to the conscience of our nation to do better than we’re doing at present.PARLIAMENT, for example, will sit this morning, rather than have an afternoon session as is habitual, because of the Easter weekend.And which MPs, from either the opposition ranks or ruling party, will put up a protest and set an example to the rest of the nation by sitting as they usually do? None, I’m sure.Some will say that Parliament traditionally sits on a Friday morning, rather than afternoon, but this too is only so that people can leave for their weekends sooner rather than later.For the work-oriented few in the country, Easter weekend starts on Friday and not Thursday, and others get no Easter weekend at all! And lest we forget, these public holidays come in addition to an already high allocation of annual leave for Namibians in terms of the Labour Act, of 20 working days! Other countries on the sub-continent are more modest with Mauritius at 16; Swaziland with 12; South Africa 15; Malawi 15 and Lesotho 12.If our people don’t want to work, and look to exploit every opportunity to avoid it, then the productivity of the country as a whole must suffer and the economy cannot grow.Only this week Malaysia’s deputy premier told the country’s civil servants they need to work harder than their seven-hour work days and to condition themselves to seeing work as a virtue rather than a punishment.This probably applies to us even more than it does to Malaysia.”If our minds are set that it is a chore to work, we will treat our work, even the simplest, as a burden,” the Malaysian premier said, adding that if people increased their working hours, this would be to the benefit of the country’s overall productivity.I’m not in favour of exploitation, but I certain advocate a strong work ethic.And I think there’s a happier medium than that which most Namibians exhibit! One would like to emphasise the merits of hard work but unfortunately in many cases these would fall on deaf ears.How does one put across the message that in life it’s generally what you put in, that you get out.Was it JFK who said ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’? Another quote that comes to mind is ‘Striving for success is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted’ and yet another, which may have more resonance simply because financial reward is involved: ‘Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do’.The multiplicity of public holidays, in addition to an already burdensome 20 working days’ leave per year, further exacerbated by people adding on to the public days and weekends, must make serious inroads on Namibia’s productivity as a whole.I am not an economist, but this argument makes perfect sense.There are those who will reject what I’m saying as exaggeration, but I challenge those people still at work when they read this column today to look around them and see just how many of their colleagues have already disappeared from the workplace.This effectively means that whatever was on their desks for completion today, will in all likelihood be postponed until next week Tuesday, or even later.Those same people who take chances will in all likelihood be the first to complain if some of the services they are expecting in whatever sector are not performed to their satisfaction because those officials are on leave or AWOL too! So I simply ask that those who are inclined to exploit public holidays and weekends take these arguments into account.And if they’re the bosses and managers and CEOs, it is even worse, because they should be leading by example.I wish too that our politicians and leadership in public life would address these issues and appeal to the conscience of our nation to do better than we’re doing at present.