Stop The Endless Suspensions On Pay

THE phenomenon of people being suspended from work with full pay and benefits for alleged misconduct in a myriad of organisations has now happened for some time and needs to be addressed urgently.

To suspend a person for an alleged misconduct with full remuneration in itself is not wrong, but to put such a person on suspension with full remuneration for a year or longer is a sign of glaring incompetence from the side of the Board of Directors of organisations – mostly parastatals – that make themselves guilty of this practice. Take the example of J Hamunyela, the TransNamib General Manager Human Resources, who has been on fully paid suspension from November 2005 until he will appear before a disciplinary hearing on 31 July 2006 (The Namibian of July 7 2006).What has the Board of Directors been doing during the past nine months? The fact that a person has been suspended already indicates that all is not well and since irregularities in his actions have been detected, why is it so difficult to investigate these very allegations brought against him and to formulate charges and bring him before a disciplinary hearing timeously? If an organisation doesn’t have a prima facie case, by all means, revoke the suspension and let the person go back to work so that he can produce/render services that are to the benefit of the organisation.Hamutenya’s is not the worst-case scenario; there were people in the past who were on suspension with full pay for almost two years! How should we interpret this? To most of us, it is corruption in disguise.I’m a human resources practitioner of a medium-sized organisation and very much involved in disciplinary matters at the workplace, but believe me, our disciplinary matters don’t take more than two weeks to be concluded.The message I got from the people I spoke to was that the suspended workers are put on suspension for such a long time with full pay so that before they are asked to resign or fired after a disciplinary hearing, they earn as much as possible without doing a day’s work.It is high time that the Government looks at this unholy practice and devise ways of how to deal with it.From my point of view, a disciplinary hearing should not take more than a month to finalise; and a more complex one not more than two months.The Government should also look at the possibility of taking action against the leaders of parastatals for wasting money in paying people who are suspended, should the suspension period go beyond a certain time – say, beyond three months.I call upon business leaders to be competent and ethical in the performance of their duties.In that way they will at least be seen to have a clue as to why they were put in those positions in the first place.KK SwakopmundTake the example of J Hamunyela, the TransNamib General Manager Human Resources, who has been on fully paid suspension from November 2005 until he will appear before a disciplinary hearing on 31 July 2006 (The Namibian of July 7 2006).What has the Board of Directors been doing during the past nine months? The fact that a person has been suspended already indicates that all is not well and since irregularities in his actions have been detected, why is it so difficult to investigate these very allegations brought against him and to formulate charges and bring him before a disciplinary hearing timeously? If an organisation doesn’t have a prima facie case, by all means, revoke the suspension and let the person go back to work so that he can produce/render services that are to the benefit of the organisation.Hamutenya’s is not the worst-case scenario; there were people in the past who were on suspension with full pay for almost two years! How should we interpret this? To most of us, it is corruption in disguise. I’m a human resources practitioner of a medium-sized organisation and very much involved in disciplinary matters at the workplace, but believe me, our disciplinary matters don’t take more than two weeks to be concluded.The message I got from the people I spoke to was that the suspended workers are put on suspension for such a long time with full pay so that before they are asked to resign or fired after a disciplinary hearing, they earn as much as possible without doing a day’s work.It is high time that the Government looks at this unholy practice and devise ways of how to deal with it.From my point of view, a disciplinary hearing should not take more than a month to finalise; and a more complex one not more than two months.The Government should also look at the possibility of taking action against the leaders of parastatals for wasting money in paying people who are suspended, should the suspension period go beyond a certain time – say, beyond three months.I call upon business leaders to be competent and ethical in the performance of their duties.In that way they will at least be seen to have a clue as to why they were put in those positions in the first place. KK Swakopmund