If you love sleep, you will end in poverty

During the height of the recent xenophobic attacks, a television news camera was positioned behind a group of foreigners squaring off in the streets against their South African attackers.

Off camera a voice came through clearly – ‘These South Africans are just a lazy bunch. They don’t want to work. They’re just jealous of us, now they kill and rob us…”

Instinctively the first reaction was one of indignation.

South Africans a lazy bunch? The very people whose enterprising nature and hard work created the powerhouse of the African continent?

But an incident in Richards Bay last week when the Department of Labour conducted a monitoring visit to wholesalers and retailers, perhaps served as a micro example of where the country is heading.

What the labour officials discovered were staff members sleeping on the job.

Their explanation? Wait for it… they sleep because they are underpaid. They want their salaries to be increased by 10% (plus a number of other demands).

Should this ridiculous principle also be applied across the board by the millions of non-unionised employees who have to make do with their 4-5% annual increases, virtually our entire workforce will be in a permanent state of slumber in la-la land.

Everywhere one goes, one finds people literally sleeping on the job, following the example set right at the top in Parliament and permeating down to local government, state departments and parastatals (with due respect to the existing pockets of excellence).

One cannot help but get an uneasy feeling that the new generation masses are slowly, but surely, shifting into the dangerous comfort zone of a handout State and a suicidal philosophy of no work, much pay.

Economic realities and long-term goals of wealth and job creation are simply discarded in the streets of violence when the never-ending tsunami of emotional striking workers go about their business stifling much needed economic growth for ill-advised and unrealistic short-term gains.

And we want everything for free. While Eskom continues to raid State (read taxpayers’) coffers to keep that malfunctioning outfit afloat, Soweto goes on the rampage because the utility dares cut off the electricity supply, worth billions, which they have brazenly stolen over the years.

What South Africa desperately needs now is a serious collective change of mindset – a return to the core values of hard work, ethics and integrity.

Without these, our economy will not prosper.

Anarchy driven by the increasing number of millions of frustrated, hungry unemployed South Africans is too close at hand not to make this a priority.

• If you love sleep, you will end in poverty. Keep your eyes open, and there will be plenty to eat! (Proverbs 20:13 – New Living Translation)