Every time the government moves to implement its new decision, some stakeholders disobey it while the state-run corporations dither and delay on enforcing it, turning the much-hyped announcement into a fiasco. The government’s decision to implement a two-day holiday on weekend in public and private offices has met the similar fate.
The two-day holiday provision was also introduced twice earlier but it fell through. Civil servants even evaded their office duty when some public agencies worked on two shifts to maintain physical distancing during COVID-19.
Ever widening imports and depleting foreign currency reserves had put an external sector pressure on the economy. To check it from further deterioration, the government had announced measures to restrict the imports of luxury goods like vehicles, liquor and junk food items. It had asked for 50 per cent or 100 per cent cash margin while opening a letter of credit (LC) for the imports under 47 harmonised codes while 10 items were completely banned for import. It seems that during the times of crisis, private and public stakeholders were unable to implement steps announced to bring the economic crisis under control.
Social and professional organisations have poor decision-making capacity. For example, Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) remained undecided on the implementation of the new holiday provision while Private and Boarding Schools Organisation Nepal (PABSON) refused to comply with it.
Meanwhile, some large private companies have demanded the amendments to the existing labour law to go ahead with the government decision. Some government corporations, too, are opening on Sundays and their notice said that they couldn't make a decision suiting to their nature of work.
The new holiday system requires forbidding the plying of the government vehicles on Sundays. Actually, the concerned agencies should be punished for not sticking to the government’s decision which has already been published in the Nepal Gazette.
Students go to school five days a week in many countries. After being elected to the post of the president of France, Emmanuel Macron decided to extend the weekly off to three days a week from the existing two days in primary schools. In general, French students go to schools five days a week including a half day either on Saturday or Wednesday. But if allowed, schools in Nepal are ready to run schools seven days a week.
Even after that, our schools and education system has pathetically failed to produce scientists, innovators, change makers as well as social and economic miracles. The government had asked schools to run full classes on Friday which would have covered half of the classes of Sunday so that they needed to manage a couple of the remaining classes.
Likewise, citing latest innovations and increased productivity backed by competency of human resources and application of machines and artificial intelligence, companies in developed countries have started to implement three days off a week. And here we are still clinging to the mediaeval working style and want the workforce in front of us even to complete a work that could be managed remotely.
This has created confusion among the people whether public offices are open since schools and private institutions run on Sunday. It's happening because nobody believes in anybody. The government, private sector and the public should overcome trust-deficit plaguing each of them.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 26 May 2022.
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