The Saturday October 26th 2013 New Vision newspaper cared a double spread titled "Lazy, thieving Ugandans give jobs to Foreigners", of course that was enough to interrupt my breakfast of fruit salad with honey, yogurt and nuts at Javas Cafe. Javas Cafe is probably an appropriate place to read this headline because it has a staff that is representative of both local and foreign workers who do a great job of providing predictable service and consequently lots of repeat customers.
So I paused to read more. Quoting the former Executive Director of the Uganda Investment Authority, Dr. Maggie Kigozi, Some Ugandan employers take on foreign workers because Ugandans lack skills and are not trustworthy, "We lack experience because our companies are still young. When Uganda was embroiled in chaos in the 1970s, Kenya was peaceful and growing her skills in the hotel and banking sectors. That could be the reason why they have good managers,". The other "undoing", according to the New Vision piece is lack of trustworthiness. That is the reason why positions like accounting and finance managers, which require high levels of integrity, are occupied by more foreigners than Ugandans.
Now, the part about "lack of trustworthiness and laziness" caught my attention for a number of reasons. First it plays into the dominant perception that I ran into when I arrived in Kampala about 7 years ago - that folks here don't want to work and will steal from you at moment's notice. Secondly, it seems to suggest that people were created or have learned the behaviors of been untrustworthy and theft to the detriment of their productivity. And thirdly, the blanket sentence past of "Ugandans" is quite unfortunate.
Of course the obvious question is whether laziness and theft are the two most important variables when discussing output per worker by country. And here we are lucky to have the works of Robert E. Hall and Charles I. Jones, both from Stanford University who in a paper published over 15 years ago found that that differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are fundamentally related to difference in social infrastructure across countries. By social infrastructure, "we mean the institutions and government policies that determine the economic environment within which individuals accumulate skills, and accumulate capital and produce output. A social infrastructure favorable to high levels of output per worker provides an environment that supports productive activities and encourages capital accumulation, skill acquisition, invention, and technology transfer".
So while the New Vision quoted a recent report that put Uganda's productivity below that of other East African countries, we left out a crucial contributing factor to why it takes eight Ugandans to do the job of one Kenya or four Ugandans to do the job of one Tanzanian. In addition to the issues of social infrastructure - and we can spend some other time on this - there is the mindset that perpetuates the continued stereotype. As we are reminded we are what we feel about what we think and what we think to quote Samuel Smiles will ultimately determine our destiny.
Having worked in the region for 8 years there is enough evidence to fall into the temptation of this type of "Ugandans are lazy" thought process but I choose to remember the hard work and dedication of Pius Otela, Harriet Ofumbi and Joyce Bakire - all Ugandans who gave 110% everyday we worked together at the local national telecom company. It is by far better to discuss ways to address the intractable issues impacting our peoples ability to compete favorably - issues of mindset, skill sets and tools rather than recycle the old narratives.
So I paused to read more. Quoting the former Executive Director of the Uganda Investment Authority, Dr. Maggie Kigozi, Some Ugandan employers take on foreign workers because Ugandans lack skills and are not trustworthy, "We lack experience because our companies are still young. When Uganda was embroiled in chaos in the 1970s, Kenya was peaceful and growing her skills in the hotel and banking sectors. That could be the reason why they have good managers,". The other "undoing", according to the New Vision piece is lack of trustworthiness. That is the reason why positions like accounting and finance managers, which require high levels of integrity, are occupied by more foreigners than Ugandans.
Now, the part about "lack of trustworthiness and laziness" caught my attention for a number of reasons. First it plays into the dominant perception that I ran into when I arrived in Kampala about 7 years ago - that folks here don't want to work and will steal from you at moment's notice. Secondly, it seems to suggest that people were created or have learned the behaviors of been untrustworthy and theft to the detriment of their productivity. And thirdly, the blanket sentence past of "Ugandans" is quite unfortunate.
Of course the obvious question is whether laziness and theft are the two most important variables when discussing output per worker by country. And here we are lucky to have the works of Robert E. Hall and Charles I. Jones, both from Stanford University who in a paper published over 15 years ago found that that differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are fundamentally related to difference in social infrastructure across countries. By social infrastructure, "we mean the institutions and government policies that determine the economic environment within which individuals accumulate skills, and accumulate capital and produce output. A social infrastructure favorable to high levels of output per worker provides an environment that supports productive activities and encourages capital accumulation, skill acquisition, invention, and technology transfer".
So while the New Vision quoted a recent report that put Uganda's productivity below that of other East African countries, we left out a crucial contributing factor to why it takes eight Ugandans to do the job of one Kenya or four Ugandans to do the job of one Tanzanian. In addition to the issues of social infrastructure - and we can spend some other time on this - there is the mindset that perpetuates the continued stereotype. As we are reminded we are what we feel about what we think and what we think to quote Samuel Smiles will ultimately determine our destiny.
Having worked in the region for 8 years there is enough evidence to fall into the temptation of this type of "Ugandans are lazy" thought process but I choose to remember the hard work and dedication of Pius Otela, Harriet Ofumbi and Joyce Bakire - all Ugandans who gave 110% everyday we worked together at the local national telecom company. It is by far better to discuss ways to address the intractable issues impacting our peoples ability to compete favorably - issues of mindset, skill sets and tools rather than recycle the old narratives.
