By Ezekiel Nabieu
Strange as it may seem I talk of maximum wages. This is balanced thinking. I deem it to be lopsided thinking to think of one of the spectrum without thinking of the other. And you cannot think of wages without labor.
It’s worth refreshing that by natural endowment Sierra Leone has no business becoming a cap-in-hand to donor recipient after over 50 years of so-called independence. Our country is one of the best naturally endowed but peopled by one of the worst species of humans on earth. Check this out with a country like Singapore with which we gained independence at about the same time. What is more disgusting is the fact that we have more natural and mineral resources than Singapore. That’s the irony.
To be fair with our employees we ought to earn our wages and not to sponge on the state or other employers. These are not the days of manna from heaven and even in those days people had to work by collecting the manna. The idea of working for work’s sake and not taking an interest in our work should be discouraged. Not only that. What is not realized is that it is the little inputs of each and everyone that lead to the total production of the state from which everyone benefits according to one’s aptitude. The bible says in Corinthians 1 verse 8 states “Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his labor.” No free lunch. Everything in this world should be earned by labor even if it is in the form of entertainment.
The social class system in Sierra Leone seems to be a micro of what obtains in the whole country where about one present of the population own about half the country’s wealth. The raising of the minimum living wage to Le 500,000 (five hundred thousand Leones or US$ 100) is an attempt to bridge the standard of living gap between the rich and poor more than half of whom live on less than a dollar a day. It is a move to be credited to the labor congress that caused an insensitive government to have a modicum of conscience. It is better late than never. That one soul could earn Le 48 million a month when the average salaries for top public servant is not more than Le 10 million Leones is something worth thinking about seriously.
For a long time the private sector has been in the lead in this matter of wages not surprisingly because of their insistence on quality of work and production levels. Government on the other hand had been lagging behind with tax, recruitment and production and requirement tainted with corruption and nepotism. It is not unusual for public servants to display wealth that is disproportionate to their official earnings in spite of the Anti-Corruption Commission that requires them to go through the cosmetic procedure of an annual declaration of assets. Ministers of government have been known to build mansions and acquire fleets of vehicles with fat bank accounts within a couple of years of their appointments. Top civil servants are not usually outdone in this regard. That’s the way they have been making up for their relatively low wages at the expense of the state. The fact is that those at the top who are expected to clean up the system have dirty hands.
Though the minimum living wage is a welcome move it has the tendency to cause lots of unemployment at the nadir in certain cases thereby becoming counter-productive. The crux of the Act is its extension to domestic servants who number in the tens of thousands. This would be difficult to monitor because they could easily pass as members of an extended family though Lebanese cannot by race and complexion bask under such a case.
While the saying is true that half a loaf is better than none the present minimum wage should only be a start. It may only take care of food and transportation and rent with little or nothing left over for any personal development. In order to be fairly comfortable the average nuclear family needs one million leones monthly. In this regard government does not care a damn for its former retired civil servants some of whom are still earning Le 30,000 (thirty thousand Leones) a month after decades of service. We should be seen to be working towards an egalitarian state.
HARD QUESTIONS
- (a) Why are new Ebola cases not announced on SLBC? (b) Is it an attempt to play down the figures that are announced by other radio stations anyway?
- (a) When will the SLBC stop announcing such bad English as “The death of the late……? (b) Does it not mean the death of the dead?
- Was anything done by government about the reported loss of Le 19.7 billion by the Auditor-General’s Report? (b) Is not this evidence of a government of wastage?
© Politico 03/02/15
