.........books did not teach and educated man did not know reasons for the
workingmen's behavior. Joseph Dorfma ( The economic mind in American
Civilisation VOL 111 (1865-1914)
At first I intend to ignore this provocative article but happen to say to my
self that then I might be doing an injustice not only to the hard working
Gambians but also Gambians who died fighting for a better society,justice
for all ,against the hunger,absolute poverty and brutality that decent and
hard working Gambians are faced with daily.I might at this moment even argue
that this article is an insult to our intelligence,our common effort to
survived under very hard condition,no matter what the intention of the
author,it is our humanity that is put under the firing line.Listen to this..
"Time and again I do hear management gurus saying that a
good worker creates more work in an efficient and effective way. However,
if
this is to be applied to the Gambia, then we are thousands of miles away
from
having good workers because the minority of good workers in the Gambia
today
have been heavily overshadowed by the bad workers and there efforts
neutralised, thus making it very difficult to distinguish the good from the
bad
and the bad from the ugly."
I will come back to this but let me make one thing clear here with regards
to this statement ;
"But then I will ask you who the government is? Does it not constitute our
fathers,
mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, friends and acquaintances? And if this
is the case then are we not part of the government? The point here is that
we
must stop using the government as a scapegoat for everything that is wrong
and for the failings of our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends
and
ourselves.."
I am taking this personally and in defence of the collective,having the
liberty of not only accusing my father,,my mother,my brothers,my sisters etc
of being part of a Government whose military goes on the rampage,
murdering innocent students for demanding to see justice done.Policing the
building of a nation where press houses are put on fire for speaking against
the suffering of ordinary people is the most horrendous political analysis
I have ever seen or heard.This Government is for it self, very distant from
the aspirations and dreams of the Gambian people and nations.
Let me return to the first quotation I made.The majority of the Gambian
workers are good workers,decent ,loyal to their country and hard
working,even a primary school student will be able to tell who they are and
what they constitute in our society.Any development theory that ignores
their plight is not a serious one.Any development theory that ignores the
fact that a nation,with more than 70% of its work force being farmers and
yet still could not feed its people and continue to live in absolute poverty
and decadency belongs to the dustbin.It is here the creation of value begins
in the Gambia and not in the offices.
"; I see people forming their own chitchat forums mainly
full of gossips, slandering and backbiting; I see people using what belongs
to
the offices for their own personal gains; I see people playing music and
dancing; I see people trying to make love in the office; I see people
signing
in and in a matter of seconds signing out for the rest of the day;"
What a petty mind,I would have love to know in which Gambian office workers
play music ,sing and dance.This is not true and yes should they leave their
office before closing time,which in most cases is true,does that constitute
the fact that they are bad workers.Why not question the reason rather than
assuming that is bad attitude to work.The majority of office worker cannot
even life from " hand to mouth" as the saying goes,the day Gambian workers
are able to live from hand to mouth will be a great day for the Gambian
nation.These are people who struggle to even have transport fares to go to
to work let alone feed their children for 10 days with their salaries and
still you expect them to sit in office concentrate on their jobs and not
thinking of their hungry children at home and refused to think that they
have electricity bill to pay.Demanding such loyalty to poor and hard
working people is an insult to their intelligence.They know they work more
than the hours they are paid for and who are we to tell them to be loyal in
doing the paper work for a government that cannot even provide wound
dressing in their hospitals let alone decent bed sheets in their
hospitals.Yes we have seen Directors in our TVs,read about them in our
Newspapers kneeling in front of the President begging to be forgiven,yes we
have seen top ranking officers running around political meetings,even if
they dont want to be there,taking part in "set settals" even if they dont
want to be there,these are the minorities you will find in their offices
doing their 8 hours,will they dare play music,dance and sing in their
offices.If these are the "good Workers" of the Gambian,yes then we have a
long way to go.
"It will be very unwise of me to claim that my solution or alternative is
universal
and that it is the only solution. In fact what I am about to offer is not a
means to an end nor is it a beginning to an end. All it will do will be to
create a beginning to the magnetisation of other ideas and thoughts for a
way
forward."
A way forward for the development of any nation cannot be "
universal",it must be specific to the concrete conditions of that
nation.Where you have to start is to answer this mysterious question, why in
this modern world more than half of a nation work force are farmers.If you
cannot start from here any other suggestions might just be another recycled
idea and precisely this is what we have seen here.
"First of all, a needs analysis needs to be conducted in every department,
para-statal, and also
in the civil service, using the matrix analysis framework. It so happens
that
most offices and departments are overloaded with people who needn’t be
there, thus causing a limbo in operations particularly cost. Most people in
organisations, departments and offices don’t even have a job description
and
don’t
play any roles within their organisations or departments."
Commodification of toilet cleaning,lets just go. Perhaps you might
forget,but when the criminal financial institution,the IMF,invaded our dear
nation,this was the lies they paraded.Teachers,public Works Department
workers,office Workers in central government were all shown the door.A
catastrophic move that our nation never recovered from and the consequences
that produces this APRC regime,from the cooking pot right into the burning
fire.You dont start the development of a nation by showing the people the
door,you have to appreciate their effort and reward them for what they are
doing so that they can concentrate on their assignments.But these text books
development study ideas will continue to ruin the most gifted among us and
continue to deepen our sufferings.Even with good intentions,our book men
struggle to liberate their minds in the midst of this most tradegic moment
of our lives and history.Without any solution,ordinary people are blamed
for their own suffering,under development,hunger and absolute poverty,whiles
the state/government is encourage to become even more crude and brutal.
"Here I am not talking about the ‘police organisation’ or the
‘CCTV’
organisation where freedom to be innovative or creative is restraint and
where
people’s privacy is invaded under the pretext of organisational policies
and
procedures. Rather I am referring to systems that will lay solid
foundations
for work ethic and professionalism, thus allowing people to work
professionally
but also be held responsible for their actions. I am not also talking about
systems that will condone the blame culture or bureaucracy, but systems
that
will promote transparency, efficiency and effectiveness"
But the next paragraph to this spells out the same bureaucratic mentality
that criminalize the workers,chained their minds and refused to recognised
their ideas.No where in this world have yet seen where polices and
procedures of governmental orgainisations takes into account the ideas of
those expected to know the policies and carry them out according to the
define procedures.If a cleaner is even to be added to it,this bureaucratic
control will not in the short term, face its own limitations but will soon
end up putting up the CCTV cameras and the Sana Saballys in front of the
office doors.Read this;
"I am talking about systems that will ensure that even the organisation or
department driver or
cleaner knows the strategic objectives of the organisation/department and
know
how their roles contribute to the overall attainment of the strategic
goals."
The energy and resources that one might use to tell the cleaner that it is
important to clean this toilet properly so that no one gets infected
because of unhygienic condition or to tell the driver to keep driving safely
so that non of the office workers get involved in an accident is among the
theories that have resulted in the commodification of our health care,our
education,our communal lands,they did not work even in the nations with the
wealth ,the energy and resources.They become models on papers and are dusted
up in times of quality control auditing,in reality,they chained the
creativity of individuals and sending people from one job to the other and
never settling down in one job.
unless we understand and accept that the human being,is not only creative in
doing things but also have the brain to think,unless we start to ask the
Cleaner,the driver what do they think, in their opinion,how this
organisation can achieve its goal,bearing in mind their own
contribution,they will rightly think their role is to clean and go.Whether
the toilet is clean enough or not becomes a subjective issue between the
boss and cleaner.
"but because they simply lick the backside of the ‘boss’. This has
created a
phenomenon where the ‘boss’ becomes the hungry predator searching for
its
preys in the vast ocean of opportunism, eventually turning the employees
into
opportunistic preys. Thus you will have to do everything the boss says or
else
you be held in solitary confinement where you will never see the beaming
rays
of training and development."
Now it is no more the office worker,it is the boss, and not in "Vast ocean"
of hunger and poverty but "of opportunism",but then should I also ask , if
it is the "boss" who asked the office worker to sing and dance in the
office or to go to kololi village to see if the contractors are using all
the cements for the new house and not selling them and or the driver is not
ask to drop the kids and collect the Madam from the hair dresser.If all is
rotten and bad,why change or modify and not uprooting the whole system and
put into place a system that recognises work as a way of life to achieve
the best out of every good citizen aspiring to contribute to the development
of our dear nation.
See how the Gambian village functions,with all the poverty,no electricity,no
running water but they manage to co-exist,have collective responsibility for
not only the life cattle in the village but also the collective hunger and
humiliation.A conscious understanding of our own reality is enough lead as
the way forward.Fanon said that our tragedy stems from among other things
that our book men,because of their laziness and cowardice do not learn to
understand our own reality and you cant develop a nation without
understanding the economic and political realities of that nation.
As some one also mention that his friend ,who is an entrepreneur,is
contemplating to employ migrants because of the bad attitude of Gambian
workers.This is as if I heard the American farmers saying they will prefer
Mexican migrant workers to native born Americans,or the Norwegian,English
saying they will prefer employing Polish migrants rather than the native.The
realities of the two is always different,you go for the migrant worker
because of your economic interest,they are always cheap ,the migrant has no
school fees to pay,no house to repair,no Tabaski lam to sacrifice,no bag of
rice to send to uncle in Bani.Their economic realities are different.The one
is accumulating the "Kemalo" and the other one is always looking for extra
income.
For Freedom
Saiks
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Fwd: Gambian attitude towards work: The Genesis of
>underdevelopment
>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:33:54 EDT
>
>Very thought provoking piece from the pages of The Gambia Journal
>
>Letter To The Editor
>
>Gambian attitude towards work: The Genesis of underdevelopment
>By Abdoulie Sallah
>Apr 11, 2007, 14:19
>
>Sometimes you tend to wonder why a country so promising and full of
>potentials is failing the dynamics of development. In most cases one is
>tempted to
>think that there are limited resources to trigger socio-economic
>development.
>But then I tend to pose the question what if the Gambia a small but great
>country was endowed with more resources? Was this equation going to create
>more
>socio-economic opportunities and advancement or was it going to be a
>catastrophic downturn? Conventional wisdom will opine that if you cannot
>efficiently
>and effectively manage a village, then how can you be expected to manage a
>city? The bottom-line argument here is that if one’s attitude towards
>the
>management of small resources is lackadaisical and dysfunctional, then how
>is it
>expected of one to manage bigger resources? A wiseman once stated that
>‘a
>vision without an action is a mere dream and an action without a vision is
>a waste
>’ but I will rephrase this and say that great skills, expertise and
>experience without appropriate execution is a waste and a means to
>self-destruction.
>This been said, I am not unmindful that the Gambia has produced and will
>continue to produce very hardworking sons who will always remain a source
>of
>inspiration to future generations.
>A significant root to the development of underdevelopment in the Gambia
>can
>be traced back to the attitude of most of its workforce. Have you ever
>wondered why almost 60% of the employable population still remain
>unemployed and
>why nearly 70% of the population are depending on 30% of the population?
>Most
>people will tell me well the government of the day is not doing enough.
>But
>then I will ask you who the government is? Does it not constitute our
>fathers,
>mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, friends and acquaintances? And if
>this
>is the case then are we not part of the government? The point here is that
>we
>must stop using the government as a scapegoat for everything that is wrong
>and for the failings of our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends
>and
>ourselves. Malcolm X the great civil right activist once stated that ‘you
>cannot be blind with patriotism so much so that you cannot face reality,
>wrong is
>wrong no matter who does it or says it’. Henceforth we as Gambians need
>to
>take a critical look at ourselves and re-evaluate our contributions towards
>the
>dynamics of underdevelopment in our great and noble motherland and the
>first
>and foremost thing we need to take a hard look at is the attitude of the
>workforce. The attitude we have towards work will determine how successful
>we
>become as a nation because even if we have everything by our side and
>don’t
>possess the right attitude we will still fail. Even the expectation of a
>divine
>intervention will not help without the right attitude because over and
>over
>again we do hear the adage ‘God only help those who help themselves’
>and God
>Himself has mentioned in the Qu’ran that He will not change the
>condition of a
>nation (people) until they change it for themselves or make an effort to
>change it.
>It is now time to call a spade a spade. Although there are pockets of
>individuals who are very hardworking, honest, disciplined and sincere,
>however I
>will not hesitate to say that most officials and ordinary people are very
>lazy,
>dishonest, undisciplined, and greedy and lack dignity and integrity. They
>have no concept of direction and advancement and are thus sent wallowing
>into
>the ocean of opportunism by the winds of materialism. Have you ever taking
>time
>to visit offices during working hours in the civil service, government
>departments and para-statals? You will be surprise at what you see or may
>be not
>because you may have been groomed by this system. Whilst you may find a
>very
>sizeable amount of hardworking people stick to their desks proving very
>productive, the majority are usually found wondering in Alice’s land.
>What do I see
>upon visiting offices? Well I see people sleeping in their offices when
>they
>should be working; I see people forming their own chitchat forums mainly
>full of gossips, slandering and backbiting; I see people using what
>belongs to
>the offices for their own personal gains; I see people playing music and
>dancing; I see people trying to make love in the office; I see people
>signing in
>and in a matter of seconds signing out for the rest of the day; I see
>people
>been abuse even though they are the righteous ones; I see people who have
>no
>responsibilities other than going from office door to office door just
>lying
>and seeking favours; I see people who cannot even spell their names
>occupying
>positions of responsibilities and authority because they are the wives,
>daughters, sons, brothers and sisters of the ‘big’ people; I see
>people with no
>job roles; I see people abusing the trust and confidence of the Gambian
>people; I see people who make themselves so inaccessible to other people
>even
>though they are there to serve the needs of those people; I see people who
>condemn
>injustice during the day and condone it during the night; and I see much
>more.
>Has is ever happened to you when you were the most qualified person for
>the
>job but because you have no contacts or coming from a poor family
>background,
>you lost the job? Has it ever happened to you when you were due for
>promotion due hard work and merit but because someone is affiliated with a
>party or
>an individual, they get the promotion? Have you ever been dismissed for
>telling the truth? Have you ever worked in an office where it is a taboo
>to
>challenge decisions, be rationale about ideas and be truthful about
>reality? Have
>you ever been isolated, discriminated and harassed because you work hard,
>because you are disciplined, because you are sincere, because you are
>honest and
>because you want to see justice and transparency? Have you ever been
>blacklisted, defamed or caricatured because you try to be creative and
>innovative
>about you job?
>Today the culture of the workforce in the Gambia is castrating development
>and causing an impotence to progress. Nowadays you will have to know
>somebody
>or have a contact to get the job done or have a transaction successfully
>completed. There is a lack of professional code of conduct and even if
>there is
>any, then people override it and use it to their own advantage- that is
>getting favours from each other. One day whilst in the Gambia having a
>discussion
>with a friend of mine, he related a very sad story about a woman. This
>poor
>woman from the province area (around Central River Region) sadly lost her
>husband who had served the Gambia all throughout his life. All she needed
>was the
>pension of her husband to maintain the family. She came all the way to
>Banjul
>for this simple transaction, which probably should not have taken even a
>week. Unfortunately for her she was referred to different departments
>before
>been finally redirected to the department she started from. Her case was
>dragged
>for over three months and as if this was not enough it was not still
>resolved. It was a friend of the woman who new my friend that asked my
>friend to
>help the woman even though my friend was in a totally separate department.
>He
>knew somebody in the other department and asked that individual to help
>the
>poor woman’s case and afterwards it took less than a week for the woman
>to get
>what was entitled to her. Why should this be the norm? Why does she have
>to
>suffer before claiming what was entitled to her? Why should it take longer
>than usual to resolve her case? Why should it be a favour for her case to
>be
>sorted? What would have been her fate if no one tried to help her? And
>just how
>long would it have taken after the three months to get her case sorted out
>without any form of intervention?
>This situation reflects an undesired metamorphosis of socio-economic
>development supported by the pillars of venomous social reassurances. In a
>very
>intensely competitive world, gone are the days when you will sit and just
>do what
>you have been asked to do without involving any form of innovation and
>creativity and going that extra mile to explore other avenues in order to
>create
>more opportunities. Time and again I do hear management gurus saying that
>a
>good worker creates more work in an efficient and effective way. However,
>if
>this is to be applied to the Gambia, then we are thousands of miles away
>from
>having good workers because the minority of good workers in the Gambia
>today
>have been heavily overshadowed by the bad workers and there efforts
>neutralised, thus making it very difficult to distinguish the good from
>the bad and
>the bad from the ugly. Our attitude towards work should not be about
>sitting
>down and waiting to be told what to do and when to do it, instead it
>should be
>one that is proactive; one that is target driven and success oriented; it
>should be one that is action-oriented and disciplined.
>
>The way forward
>I have always told people and my students that whenever you criticise
>people, systems or ideologies, don’t leave them hanging like that
>because it will
>cause you to be a victim of the very thing you criticise, thus offer
>constructive alternatives. This is exactly what I intend to do in this
>section. It
>will be very unwise of me to claim that my solution or alternative is
>universal
>and that it is the only solution. In fact what I am about to offer is not
>a
>means to an end nor is it a beginning to an end. All it will do will be to
>create a beginning to the magnetisation of other ideas and thoughts for a
>way
>forward.
>Undoubtedly change will be the foremost thing to be put into the equation
>and not only change but a change that is swift and radical. First of all,
>a
>needs analysis needs to be conducted in every department, para-statal, and
>also
>in the civil service, using the matrix analysis framework. It so happens
>that
>most offices and departments are overloaded with people who needn’t be
>there, thus causing a limbo in operations particularly cost. Most people
>in
>organisations, departments and offices don’t even have a job description
>and don’t
>play any roles within their organisations or departments. Conducting needs
>analysis will enable organisations and departments to identify their
>resources, and the quality and quantity of the personnel they would need
>to operate.
>People only become idle and lazy when they have absolutely nothing to do
>or
>think about. People should have enough work to keep them busy for the
>required
>number of hours they are expected to stay in their offices and not having
>to
>stay in their offices for eight hours just to be given a ten minute piece
>of
>work for the whole day. The needs analysis will also weed out the unwanted
>people thereby saving cost for the departments and organisations. Although
>this
>may be seen as harsh and a repetition of the retrenchment of workers as in
>the days of the Economic Recovery Programme, however the difference is
>that
>cost saved will be reinvested into the best, most qualified and
>hardworking
>workers instead of repaying debts. In addition, this will create a very
>competitive atmosphere where people will learn to value their jobs and
>always want to
>make a difference in the workplace. Similarly, conventional wisdom on
>motivation will reveal that the better the people are paid, developed and
>given the
>right resources, the more likely they will excel and bring about desired
>results.
>In addition, another mechanism that can be used to overcome the Gambian
>attitude or work culture is the introduction of systems that will monitor
>and
>hold accountable each and every individual within organisations and
>departments.
>Here I am not talking about the ‘police organisation’ or the
>‘CCTV’
>organisation where freedom to be innovative or creative is restraint and
>where
>people’s privacy is invaded under the pretext of organisational policies
>and
>procedures. Rather I am referring to systems that will lay solid
>foundations for
>work ethic and professionalism, thus allowing people to work
>professionally
>but also be held responsible for their actions. I am not also talking
>about
>systems that will condone the blame culture or bureaucracy, but systems
>that
>will promote transparency, efficiency and effectiveness. I am talking
>about
>systems that will ensure that even the organisation or department driver
>or
>cleaner knows the strategic objectives of the organisation/department and
>know
>how their roles contribute to the overall attainment of the strategic
>goals. It
>is sad to note that even most middle level managers in the Gambia know
>neither the mission nor the objectives of their respective organisations.
>How then
>does one expect them to perform meaningfully towards the achievement of
>such
>objectives? What has happened to performance management? What has happened
>to employee development review? What has happened to employee supervision?
>What has happened to employee mentoring? What has happened to appraisal?
>How
>many of these systems are fully and regularly utilised? Well if people
>don’t
>have the technical know-how, how can they be expected to do it? This leads
>me to
>my next point.
>Capacity building or development always proves to be very valuable.
>Developing the expertise and technical know-how of your employees is an
>investment
>worthwhile both in the short and long runs. Unfortunately in the Gambia
>this
>valuable area of investment is abused and totally alienated. It is the
>norm and
>practice in Gambian departments and organisations that capacity building
>and
>development is used as a mechanism for seeking and returning favours.
>People
>are nowadays sent to trainings, workshops, seminars, conferences, and
>further studies not because they are the most suitable and qualified
>individuals,
>but because they simply lick the backside of the ‘boss’. This has
>created a
>phenomenon where the ‘boss’ becomes the hungry predator searching for
>its
>preys in the vast ocean of opportunism, eventually turning the employees
>into
>opportunistic preys. Thus you will have to do everything the boss says or
>else
>you be held in solitary confinement where you will never see the beaming
>rays
>of training and development. Another criteria for eligibility that is
>usually considered when it comes to training and development is personal
>affiliation with the ‘big boss’ or the ‘bigger boss’. Sometimes
>the boss, the big
>boss and the bigger boss are so greedy that they let nothing leak down to
>the
>underdogs, even though they may not need it but because of the allowances
>and
>par-diems attached. Recommendations for further training and development
>must
>be critically assessed and attached to the needs of the organisation or
>department. Robust selection criteria that are open and transparent must
>be put in
>place allowing little or no space for managerial discretion. May be having
>a
>selection committee comprising of sections of the organisation or
>department
>will not be a bad idea. The purpose of this committee will be to
>scrutinise
>proposals coming from senior management with reference to training and
>development and scan selected individuals against set criteria. This is
>neither
>bureaucracy nor work overloading, it is simply accountability.
>Finally, a new approach towards public management must be introduced; one
>that is independent and free from politicisation; one that is very
>competitive
>and customer oriented; one that involves consultation with the very people
>whose needs need to be served; one that is target driven; and one that is
>accountable to all stakeholders. I do not mean privatisation here but
>something
>like a competitive and non-commodified alternative to capitalist
>corporations
>who are target driven and profit oriented. The delivery of public services
>must be measured, planned, evaluated and above all accounted for. I am not
>saying that it is wrong to do favours for people, but it must not be the
>foundation for professionalism and certainly not the corner stone for the
>delivery of
>public services.
>The Gambia is a small and peaceful country that has social values. Social
>systems are good for development and as a result must be valued and
>treasured.
>I am saying we must learn to help each other; I am saying we must learn to
>lend a hand; I am saying we must learn to support each other; I am saying
>we
>must change our attitude towards work if we are to reach the pinnacle of
>advancement; I am saying we must not base our decisions and work ethics on
>social
>delusions but rather on informed rationality guided by a sense of social
>justice.
>
>By
>Abdoulie Sallah
>PhD Student
>University of Leicester School of Management (UK)
>
>
>
>
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