Friday 2 October 2009

Nigeria could do better

Dr Paul Bdliya of the Nigerian National Productivity Centre is embarking on a Productivity Awareness Campaign (PAC) in an attempt to institutionalize a productivity culture in the Nigerian people using the mass media as its strategic tool and focusing on jingles, debates, advertisement, press briefing and so on through various media.

According to Paul: “The natural competitiveness that should arise from the industry and entrepreneurship of the Nigerian people is threatened by manifestations of some undesirable elements of work culture -elements, that appear to be washing away whatever competitive advantage our natural inclination for hard work confers.

There is too much evidence of: lateness, absenteeism, indolence, poor time management, culture of waste and profligacy, poor maintenance culture, nepotism cronyism etc. This bad situation is further compounded by low productivity consciousness.

In Nigeria, people are generally ignorant of the true meaning of the concept of productivity. To many of us, productivity is merely working harder- rather than smarter or wiser. Many also believed that being seriously engaged in activities is all about productivity – even if such activities are not result-oriented, or add any value.

To others, the concept has relevance only in terms of physical, tangible goods and not the intangible, service products. All the negative mindsets, needless to say translates to low productivity that single most crucial determinant of a country’s product/service competitiveness and standard of living.”

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