EDITORIAL: Long suspensions impact efficiency
Hundreds of employees in the public sector and at parastatals are presently suspended with pay.
Some of them have been on suspension for up to five years while still collecting tax dollars without doing anything.
They are not at blame. This heinous plunder of the populace is the result of inefficiencies in government and semi-government bureaucracies.
The Namibia Student Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) removed Hilya Nghiwete as CEO in April 2018. The fund has so far continued to pay her million-dollar salary. In addition, there are further costs set aside to cover the interim CEO's salary and the costs of the ongoing legal struggle over her reluctance to leave the scene.
The length of punishments like Nghiwete's has two major faults. First of all, paying someone that much money to stay at home is an egregious waste of money.
Secondly, persons who are suspended for extended periods risk having their professional integrity eternally damaged, sometimes innocently. To us, suspensions should only be in effect for three months. Anything more than that means the institution has no case against the employee. Such long suspensions do not occur in the private sector, where time and resources are managed conservatively.
Long suspensions harm productivity and, as a result, public institutions' overall effectiveness. Even when someone is chosen to fill in for a suspended employee, that individual now has both their own job and that of their grounded colleague to do.
Some of them have been on suspension for up to five years while still collecting tax dollars without doing anything.
They are not at blame. This heinous plunder of the populace is the result of inefficiencies in government and semi-government bureaucracies.
The Namibia Student Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) removed Hilya Nghiwete as CEO in April 2018. The fund has so far continued to pay her million-dollar salary. In addition, there are further costs set aside to cover the interim CEO's salary and the costs of the ongoing legal struggle over her reluctance to leave the scene.
The length of punishments like Nghiwete's has two major faults. First of all, paying someone that much money to stay at home is an egregious waste of money.
Secondly, persons who are suspended for extended periods risk having their professional integrity eternally damaged, sometimes innocently. To us, suspensions should only be in effect for three months. Anything more than that means the institution has no case against the employee. Such long suspensions do not occur in the private sector, where time and resources are managed conservatively.
Long suspensions harm productivity and, as a result, public institutions' overall effectiveness. Even when someone is chosen to fill in for a suspended employee, that individual now has both their own job and that of their grounded colleague to do.
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Namibian Sun
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