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Rome was not built by charlatans and skivers.
In deed, you cannot build strong national economies with incompetent and lazy work force. Yes, this is right. An unworkable labour cannot make capital out of any investment, whether direct foreign investments or local ones. No matter the size of it.
This seems to be the unfortunate impressions most African nations have left with some foreign investors who are trying hard to do business in our economies.
In a classified report seen by yours truly, an international risks assessment consultancy group has heavily criticised most workers in some African countries as “… professionally incompetent, suspicious and lazy”.
Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal were mildly decried in the report as, “having potentially good professionals who are highly educated but currently have little or no experience or expertise at all”.
The report goes on to suggest that for Africa to match the status presently enjoyed by most Asian economies now, “Governments ought to do more in training programmes and change perceptions of its countries’ workforce to make their economies attractive to foreign investors”.
Now, the punch line! The report goes on to warn potential investors to toughen their recruitment procedures because a lot of people, “promise what they cannot do and/or will try to avoid doing what they can with the slightest excuse”.
Positively, some countries were given praise in the document for setting the right environment for future economic activities to flourish.
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Ghana was singled out for the bold macro-economic initiatives it has taken, so far, to attract a lot of foreign investments into the country.
Due to the present political stability, peace, and our democratic inclination coupled with some economic restructuring, the country has managed to win the goodwill of most global investors who have shied away from Ghana in the past.
Even, during his recent whistle stop in the country, the World Bank President, the American academic and political figure Paul D.Wolfowitz commended Ghana’s good economic progress and advised that with a little bit of hard work the country could become one of the economic giants in Africa. Ghana’s economic growth rate is presently
at 8 per cent. |
The 63 year-old professor’s son, who wished to have stayed longer in the country, said at the Kotoka International Airport that he had to continue with his African tour because others need him more than Ghana.
Well, it’s good to enjoy the present accolades and wave of interest in Ghana and its likes on the continent as a whole. However, just like many African countries if we were to sustain this interest and any growth rate then we need to heed the advice of the report, or learn lessons from it.
It is good to take bold macro-economic initiates, such as Economic Restructuring Programmes, HIPC initiatives, APRMs but if we fail to back them up with some serious micro-management we are bound to attract criticisms, and ultimately failure.
To start with, let’s look at some of the accusations leveled at us in this report: One-“Professionally incompetent, suspicious and lazy”. Two – “Promise what they cannot do and/or avoid doing what they can with the slightest excuse”.
People who say they are not what they are or promise what they cannot do are charlatans. In a British Cockney parlance they are called ‘Cowboys’.
A professionally incompetent person will call himself an accountant but cannot balance a book. He will call himself an I.T. consultant believing that computers are all about Microsoft Word or playing Solitaire. He thinks journalism is only all about ‘he who said what where and when’ but cannot semantically, textually, pictorially, epistemologically, or ethnographically analyse and report on situations and issues. He says he is a lawyer believing that ‘when lawyers die their eyes do not shut’ because they are all suppose to lie. He says he’s an engineer but has no foresight for structures, systems and designs.
All these are symptoms of ‘charlatanism’ and ‘Cowboyism’.
Skivers on the other hand (or if you like, same arm length) would try to skive off work calling in sick or make excuses. In Africa some range from ‘I’ve got a funeral’, ‘my goat has eaten my clothing’, ‘I’m a chief in my village where work is forbidden on Tuesdays’, and there are the silent reasons of ‘all night prayer meetings and deliverance sessions on Monday mornings’.
You see, things like that call for suspicion and shows signs of laziness.
The report as indicated earlier pointed out that potentially, there are good graduates in African, highly educated (I suspect they intentionally did not say well-educated) people who lacks experience and expertise.
Well, you all know this. Some of us might have two, sometimes three Master degrees, PhDs, etc, etc but we end up having no practical knowledge of it or cannot translate theory into practice because of our attitudes.
If we fail to tell potential foreign employers upon returning home that our Masters or PhDs (which we have gained with their sons and daughters in the same universities but paid exorbitant fees than their children) were only good for cleaning their toilets, delivering their posts and watching over their multi-billion pound offices in the City of London, they will think of you as a charlatan or cowboy because you cannot deliver what you put on your CVs.
Be real, be original, strive and get some training and experience even if you’ll have to work for free. So together we can build our continent upon our return home.
Oh, and always remember that charlatans and skivers did not build wonderful and amazing Rome.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “I have only one counsel for you – be master”
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