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ThisWeekGhana.com becomes the D-O-T
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Commentary Page
We invite commentaries from writers all over. The subject is about
Ghana and the world. We reserve the right to accept or reject
submissions, but we are not necessarily responsible for the opinions
expressed in articles we publish......MORE
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Development and the holiday mentality
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
We celebrate our achievements to date with holidays. Thus,
today, July 1st, is our Republic Day. Then there is Independent
Day and the funeral days, not counting other celebrative days.
That must add up to a lot of non-working days in a year.
I was talking to one of Ghana’s brains the other day about the
subject of holidays and he gave me what I must describe as a
revealing insight to how many unproductive days we spend in the
year as holidays.
He said, “Don’t count your regular calendar holidays. That’s a
given so there is no need to worry about that. More will be
added as we accumulate new landmarks.”
At the mention of landmarks, I heaved a sigh of relief since
February 24 is not yet a holiday. The country is waiting to see
if June 4th will be added as a point of reference for coups
celebrations.
But back to my brainiac. He said there are 52 weeks in a regular
year and seven days in the week. His theory was, out of the
seven days five are supposed to be working days, but in reality
only three achieve that status.
I understood. Start with Fridays which are loaded with
anticipation of the weekend activities to come - the weddings,
and the funerals to attend. Depending on the distance and the
traffic pattern, Fridays may be a good time to start your
journey.
And Thursdays are usually burdened by anticipations for Fridays.
They have their own encumbrances, since those to be left behind
to man the bureaucracies on Friday would spend time this day to
plot how to dodge the work load to come on Friday, a day when
even the most intrepid would be overburdened with work.
There is also the fact that some of our holidays tend to be
complex, multi-faceted and unscheduled, given the religious and
tribal nature of our society. The Church outings, the rites and
the festivals (Kpo Dziemo, Homowo, Aboatsire, Retreats) tend to
demand more days from our work week.
At this stage you may wonder what the impact is on our society
when a tiny fraction of the population takes off on weekdays for
funeral celebrations or other activities. To help understand,
you need to start by thinking that a minute fraction of the
population man our bureaucracies, therefore, any unscheduled
void in work schedule has its own set of repercussions.
I saw a police man berating a superior for not allowing him to
attend the funeral of his brother. His job at the security point
at that moment came next to his ability to pay his final respect
to his brother. His replacement had to be pulled off from
somewhere else.
Then, of course, he would not be the only relative of the dead.
There might be others, some with responsibilities that could
fall within the same or larger bureaucracies, either in the
police force, army or government. Remember the government is the
largest employer in Ghana. And they will all be at the same
funeral for the departed brother.
Once an infinitesimal section of the bureaucracy is touched with
absenteeism, a whole line of societal needs get impacted. A
citizen, unless he or she is a cynic, has no reason to suspect
what may be happening within a certain bureaucracy in terms of
production until he or she shows up at that office.
I had the experience some years ago of needing to collect an
express package, that was sent from abroad, from the Post
Office. I was told when I showed up that the key to the room the
package was kept could not be found. The man in charge had taken
off for a funeral the Friday before and would not be back till
Tuesday.
My inability to secure the important package that day was not as
disappointing as the nonchalance with which the Post Office help
delivered the news: I was the odd man out for not understanding
that it was necessary for the store room to be shut for the
reason stated!
I didn’t get my package that day. Not even on the Tuesday
promised. The recovery of whatever the package contained had to
be delayed, whether it was time sensitive, health critical or
not!
The key to all this is that we work less than we think we do in
Ghana. We need to adjust our holiday mentality towards
development.
Consider the days towards Christmas and New Year. If there were
a scale that could accurately gauge the national work effort
during this period, it would show a drastic drop to a fifth of
the normal work day’s output. It is not unusual for the high
season’s celebration to start as early as the 19th of December.
Of course, the 26th is Boxing Day. So who would want to work for
the three days left before the 1st of the year in our current
holiday enjoyment culture?
I had a need once to clear a container at Tema on a day that
fell on December 18th. I was not able to do so until the first
week of the New Year.
For those in charge of promoting more holidays to commemorate
our meager achievements, there is the need to know that we need
more days for work in order to develop. Let our next holiday
appointment be made to celebrate WORK. Trade the next holiday
for a weekend day to celebrate WORK AND HAPPINESS.
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, July 1, 2009
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
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Development and the holiday mentality
Commentary, July 1, Ghanadot -
We celebrate our achievements to date with holidays. Thus,
today, July 1st, is our Republic Day. Then there is Independent
Day and the funeral days, not counting other celebrative days.
That must add up to a lot of non-working days in a year.
...
More |
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Fraud, abuse and waste in Ghana’s
public services
Feature, July 1, Ghanadot - Marking 50th Anniversary
of public services workers in Ghana, Ghanadot’s Financial
and Economic Journalist, Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh takes a
look at some of the audit reports of the public sector in
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