By Ezekiel Nabieu
Man must work. Can we for a moment imagine a world without work; a world full of only pleasures? In such a world there will obviously be a surfeit of monotony. I wouldn’t like to live in it. Would you?
“To rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God,” states Ecclesiastes 5:19. The antithesis of this statement is that those who don’t enjoy their work are in a bad way. Absence of occupation is not rest. A mind vacant is a mind distressed. The Bible also states in Proverbs 14:23 that in all labour there is profit. This may not refer to financial profit only but it may include psychological satisfaction.
The question arises whether one goes to work for the love of work only or for the love of money although both motives cannot be mutually exclusive. This is simply because reward sweetens labour.
Many workers may not give of their best with the best will in the world only because they miss their calling. But how easy is it for one to put his/her finger on the job one is naturally called for? It is however to be noted that every human being has a talent for something different from others in much the same way as finger prints are different. Ignorance of one’s ideal occupation can cost the individual concerned and by extension the state, a great loss of income and production.
The hidden knowledge of one’s best bet prevents people from occupying themselves in the highest employments of which their natures are capable.
Sierra Leone’s first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, stated among other things, that independence means hard work. This is certainly because some citizens were labouring under the error that the country had arrived at some kind of El Dorados. These days the Koroma government has introduced performance contracts with cryptic yardsticks. And these contracts are mainly entered into with Ministers or Senior Civil Servants leaving out the bulk of the workers whose input for optimum production is essential.
The ethic of long hard work, however, seems to have been gradually on the wane. The General Orders of the Civil Service seem to have been put out of date and replaced with Political Orders. The mass of character, mind, heart or soul that civil servants should put into their work has been foreign.
DE PA DAE TRY
Whenever one attempts to make some constructive criticism of the system one is likely to hear ‘De Pa Dae Try’. In other words the President as Head of Sate bears no responsibility for what is going on. Why should it be so? What is the essence of leadership? How can a captain be absolved when a ship sinks? Will it be fair to blame the engineers or other members of the crew? The shift of blame is more absurd when you consider that almost all political appointments are made by the president himself unlike the civil service where the Public Service Commission makes the appointments and sends recruits to senior government officials.
What happened to the promise of 24 hours of electricity made by President Ernest Bai Koroma? If the answer is 24 hours of excuses you are damn right. De pa dae try. Add to that the fact that we have 24 hours of unhappiness. Why should mineral and natural resources-rich Sierra Leone be among the unhappiest on planet earth?
It should be noted that the President and his cabal are among the happiest people in the world. If the government’s policies result in “man den nor glady” instead of “man den glady,” what is the whole rhetoric of Agenda for Prosperity about? By the look of things two generations of Sierra Leoneans may be gone before this brand of prosperity is realized if at all.
In the matter of having all MDAs represented with an office at State House except a representative from the Vice President’s office de Pa dae try. There they are with a battery of advisers in every conceivable department falling over one another in a bid for supremacy. Perhaps this is why some ministries are without ministers. They are apparently being run remotely by State House Advisers. De Pa dae try.
Sierra Leone is among the last three in the world for environmental degradation certainly due to lack of law enforcement. De pa dae try.
With billions of Leones wasted on Wanza (read between the lines) after an earlier regime found that it was not justified. De Pa dae try. That money could have been used for lots of development projects in this country. Know what are kickbacks?
Fancy this profligate and heartless government going for a retreat and spending billions of tax-payers’ money in the midst of such hardship in the country! Think of any way of wasting revenue! Prepare a budget even by virement, collect the amount and spend it on lagida.
We need to stop living in this fantasy land created by the APC politicians and their lackeys. It’s time to start wising up to the things they don’t want to tell us.
(C) Politico 26/02/14
