25 May 2014

North East District councillors have decried the poor work ethic exhibited by some employees in this country.



Commenting on a presentation by a Botswana National Productivity Centre (BNPC) official during a full council meeting on Thursday, May 22, the councillors noted with concern how the situation was detrimental to efforts to grow the country’s economy.



Makaleng ward councillor, Mr Damien Thapa said it was disheartening that although Botswana topped Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries in terms of having a well-trained workforce, its productivity levels continued to stagnate or even drop to undesirable levels.



Cllr Thapa said although at independence, the country had a serious deficiency of trained personnel, productivity levels in both the private and public sectors were highly admirable.


He said it was the norm then for employees to go an extra mile in the execution of their duties, something he observed was in stark contrast to today’s workforce, to which delivering services in a shoddy manner has become the order of the day.



Cllr Thapa appealed to BNPC to devise strategies of engaging trade unions on matters of productivity, saying the concept of embarking on ‘go-slows’ by employees whenever they felt aggrieved was a serious anomaly that needed to be addressed forthwith.



Cllr for Zwenshambe ward, Mr Khazi Motswakae said the issue of a poor work ethic could be attributed to a lack of understanding by most Batswana of what exactly the freedom they had attained at independence entailed.


He said to some people, being free seemed to mean having the choice not to give their best in their jobs.



Cllr Motswakae also spoke against the eligibility of able-bodied people into government social security programmes.



He said such an arrangement had resulted in such beneficiaries not wanting to seek gainful employment or dragging their feet in carrying out their duties whenever they happened to be able to land jobs.


For his part, Cllr Edward Makhumalo of Moroka ward noted that it was clear that a lot of employees were not aware of how poor time management was detrimental to productivity.



Cllr Makhumalo said it was crucial therefore, for employees to understand the importance of time management, observing that such was synonymous with high self-discipline.

Underscoring the issue of disregard for time being one of the major impediments to high productivity, he noted that it was sad that some employees continued to report for duty with no plan of activities to carry out on any given day.
To such employees, Cllr Makhumalo said reporting for duty and not actually performing any duty was tantamount to having not worked; a notion he pointed out was completely wrong.

Cllr Moses Maloiso of Tshesebe ward also condemned the employees who continued to exhibit a negative work ethic.



Highlighting how such employees negatively affected efforts to grow the country’s economy, he indicated that a majority of them often demonstrated a lack of due responsibility or care especially towards their employers’ goods.
 ENDS