Change work ethics, emulate Chinese
By Peter Banura
Undoubtedly, Uganda is dubbed the pearl of Africa, a unique and adorable country. Winston Churchill envisaged this way back in 1908 in his book “My African Journey.”
Blessed with beautiful scenery and natural resources, among other things, the country’s much of its border is on lakeshores. Although landlocked with no access to the seaport, this is a blessing in disguise because it is a gateway to the Great Lakes region.
It is a fact that it is a fertile and well-watered country that consists of many lakes and rivers including the largest, Lake Victoria. The people of Uganda are incredibly warm and welcoming embrace tourism and love to show visitors their beautiful country and share their culture.
Many stakeholders: missionaries, nongovernmental organization and private companies have come into the country to harness our resources for the economic development of our motherland with a population of now about 47 million majority of whom are youth.
In my role as the District Chairman of implementing and monitoring government programmes in Kikuube district, an area blessed with oil, I interact with a number of stakeholders.
One of them is China Railway Seventh Group Company, Ltd subsidiary of China Railway Engineering Group (CREC) that registered it presence in Uganda in 2009. It is involved in the construction of oil roads among others.
Since then, it has completed a number of road, municipal and mining construction projects, and completed the contract amount of more than US$240 million of which President Yoweri Museveni has attended the groundbreaking and opening ceremonies of the projects.
The government has entrusted the company that at present, it has a total of 10 projects under construction in Uganda, including 8 road and municipal engineering projects, and 2 bridge projects, the total amount of contracts under construction exceeds US$300 million, offered more than 7,000 working opportunities in Uganda, worked with almost 100 local sub-contractors, and the local market purchases amounted to nearly 200 million US dollars.
The company has executed their projects to the dot and even gone the extra mile to offer corporate social responsibility. For instance, as the company embarks on its new project of constructing the Kabwoya to Buhuka 43 kilometres road in Kikuube District, a link between Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo, it has offered to train Buhimba Technical Institute students in technical skills, a gap in the labour market.
There are many things to learn from this firm but the most important take-home lesson from these Chinese is their focus on job and delivery on time. As early as 6:00am, I have always found these expatriates donned in their large hats on the road.
However our youth majority of whom are yarning for jobs will appear at the site at 9:00am by 12:00pm is go for lunch, come back at 2:00pm and by 5:00pm is off duty. In a month a Ugandan employee has to attend the burial of a relative which takes two to three days and also or last funeral rites another days two days.
Not only does this tendency to dodge work exist, but some workers also steal from their employers. For instance, in the road construction sector, theft of fuel commonly dubbed as ‘deeping a snake’ is the business of the day.
Fellow Ugandans, with all this abundant nature around us, this country is not supposed to languish in poverty. If we are to fast-track the development of our country, our work ethics have to change. Let us emulate these Chinese friends, time for work, is time for work. But not only working but being focused on transforming Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country. This involves changing from a predominantly low-income to a competitive upper-middle-income country. For God and Country.
Peter Banura, Chairman Kikuube District