Work ethic - the great problem facing Botswana

| Friday December 3, 2010 00:00

This is a very frightening matter, because it touches on the very future of the country.  If our work ethic is so low, to put it in other words, if workers in Botswana simply do not perform the work they are employed to perform, how can we ever hope to develop the country.

I come from a profession that is always under scrutiny by the public.  Medical doctors, especially those who work for the public services (Government) are under constant criticism from members of the public, most of it rather harsh. The same applies to other health workers, especially nurses, who are also subject to tongue-lashing from the public all the time.  The criticism for the health profession ranges from accusations of incompetence to those of negligence, rudeness as well of lack of compassion.  This kind of criticism is almost universal for public services, but is more prominent in developing countries, particularly African countries.  Take a newspaper in any country in Africa, and you will realise what I mean.  The public health services (and education services) usually receive the bulk of criticism from the media and the public.

However, one has to ask oneself what happens in other sectors.  What happens in all other services, both in Government and in the private sector?  What happens when you go to a Government department, e.g. to a Ministry headquarters, to a department, to a district council, or to a Land Board office?  We read a lot about the quality of services there.  It is in Parliament all the time.

The Private sector has in a way escaped this scrutiny by the media and the public.  Yet service in the private sector is also generally below par, in many cases unprofessional and impersonal. There is a general attitude to work in this country that bodes ill for the future unless something drastic is done.  One acknowledges that there has been some work and introspection through such bodies as the BNPC, indicating that the authorities and leaders are aware of the problem of poor work ethic and low productivity, but one does not see any change for the better.  In fact, as a perception one sees deterioration all the time.

Two years ago when I was a WHO Representative in one of the Southern African countries, I had lunch with an Ambassador from a Western country who covered my country of assignment from South Africa.  We ended up discussing Zimbabwe and the inclusive Government that had just come into being.  We saw the prospects of Zimbabweans in South Africa, Botswana and the other neighbouring countries going home.  Then the Ambassador said something interesting.  She did not envisage Zimbabweans leaving South Africa, and she said something like 'if the Zimbabweans leave South Africa, who will do all the work?'.  I could immediately relate to that in the case of Botswana.  If the Zimbabweans left Botswana, who will do all the work?

Botswana employers are resorting to our neighbours for all sorts of work, legally or illegally.  Even our Parliamentarians have said it.  At the lower end of the scale, the immigrants form a sizeable proportion of housemaids, gardeners, herdsmen, farm labourers and other unskilled workers.  At artisan level they are in the building industry, in garages, panel beating work etc. And there are a fair amount of them in the professions as well, such as in the health profession. They get this employment because it is believed they apply themselves better at work.

A few years ago I differed with our media when they stated that employers hired Zimbabweans because they exploit them; they underpay them.  In fact, while there may be an element of that, it is always a factor in mass migration, many Batswana employ Zimbabweans because they believe they have a better work ethic than local workers.  This is especially applicable at the unskilled, semi-skilled, artisan and technician level.  In fact, the story goes that if you ask a Motswana worker to do a lot of work they say that 'o batla go mperekisa jaaka MoZimbabwe'.  In many cases employers look for many kinds of workers and just cannot get them because it is the kind of labour Batswana are not interested in.  Something I have found particularly disturbing since my return home is workers who are employed, but want to do jobs on the side to be paid privately; either they do it in the employer's premises and want you to pay them outside, or they offer to come and do the job at your place.  I have personally encountered this in all sorts of services; such as tyre repairs, wheel alignment, windscreen repairs, carpet cleaning and many other services.  The concerned workers don't care whether the business collapses or not.  They bleed the company without due regard to their future employment.  We hear of workers, even from public institutions such as District Councils who do private work during the time of their employer and using the employer's equipment.

The big question is, where is it all heading?  Will we ever have a committed workforce?  All one hears is workers saying 're lekanya tiro le madi', meaning they are paid poor salaries and the work they do has to be commensurate.  How actually do we measure the amount of money commensurate with a particular amount of work?  In another puzzling example, the Ministry of Health Engineer recently, when talking about equipment breakdowns in the Letsholathebe Hospital in Maun, alleged that the piping of such machines as washing machines were deliberately broken by workers so they could earn overtime.   If this is true, and I hope the authorities will conduct investigations to verify or nullify the allegations.  It will be a terrible indictment on Botswana workers and their work ethic.  I believe these things point to a uniquely Botswana problem relating to work ethic and skill development that needs to be attended to as a matter of urgency. Edward MaganuBy email