Uncle Harvest: MALAWI AND PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

MALAWI: If we, as a country, are looking at the development of this country and the fulfillment of MW2063, one of the major areas of review and reform is the issue of public holidays. This country spends a lot of time on holidays.

Let me begin by looking at weekends; 52 days of Saturdays and 52 days of Sundays, a total of 102 days. These are days when Malawi's workplace is closed down and unproductive. Discount these days from 365 days.

We have 11 days of Public Holidays, bringing the number of unproductive days to 113 in a year.

You then consider that over 80 percent of our workplaces operate a 0730am to 0500pm working hours, which is a third of the day, this translates to 168 days of unproductivity.

As Malawians, we, therefore, are not at work for 281 days per annum.

We, can go further and discount from the remaining 84 days we spend at funerals, time spent chatting about the English Premier League, cheap political talk, gossiping, personal leave, sick leave, and unexplained absences.

We are not a productive nation. We are on perpetual leave. We are not an investment destination. This calls for a radical mindset change.

Let us act and act now, otherwise, we a constantly assigning ourselves to remain a least developed country. We run the danger of becoming the only candidate to qualify to be a fourth-world country, ultra-poor nation.

Cry my beloved country.

I have no basis to wish you a happy New Year, not under these circumstances.