But are salaries getting people home at all, in safety and in comfort? If they are not and are therefore leaving people by the road side, what are the alternatives and how do people negotiate out of the difficulties in hard times? That is the big question.
This big question reminds me of the gone are the days Twi highlife song entitled, “enye koraa ente se pay day”. To wit, no matter how bad one’s financial situation, at least the day when salaries are credited (pay day) is something to look forward to. For the salaried worker in financial difficulties, it is the light at the end of the tunnel.
Unfortunately, the times of that popular highlife tune is long gone. “Pay day” these days is leaving some by the road side. It simply is not enough to even get them on “tro-tro” home. Some workers do not help their course. They take loans for everything under the sun to the extent that the take home pay only exists on pay rolls. The salary deductions leave them with nothing in their wallets.
For the reason that salaries are not taking people home, these days we get employees taking to multiples of courses to better their lot. We have people taking advantage of professional courses, distance learning, e-learning, part-time graduate and postgraduate degree courses, computer literacy courses and indeed anything that would push them up on their career ladder or for promotions in order to earn something extra. One only has to drive past some of these private universities in the night and on Saturday mornings to see the number of people who have parked their cars to attend part time classes.
The other salary “top-up” craze in town these days is the idea of a second or third job. Ghana has now become like elsewhere in the western countries lately with individuals engaging in multiples of jobs to supplement their income. It used to be common with people in the medical field. They used to do locums, working part time at other clinics and medical centres during their spare times to make some extra income. Though a bit taxing on people’s health, a second or week-end job to make extra money is becoming quite common.
There are those who have professionalised and graduated their hobbies into a second income generating business. Others have teamed up with colleagues to open up consultancy jobs as their aside businesses making office spaces essential commodities these days.
As for part-time teaching or lecturing, it looks like the most common of all the salary “top-ups”. The mushrooming of educational facilities from remedial Senior High School (SHS) to university degrees being offered by private universities and other institutions of higher learning has come in handy for those who have taken teaching as a part time income “top-up”.
As for the opening of shops, we are still counting. Available spaces at the front of homes and backing on to major roads have become hot cakes for the selling of all stuff from clothing to shoes, food and drinks as well as household stuff.
I happened to be in the company of some young professionals the other week. Talking to them, they lamented how difficult working life is. They talked about their meager salaries and the expectations from parents to younger siblings.
The boys amongst them talked about how marriage is not going to feature on their priority list for years to come in view of the financial burdens marriage brings. They moaned that in their current positions, they could not see how they could rent accommodation, furnish it, pay utilities, food and other comforts such as a cars and mobile phones and still put something aside as savings. Almost all of them, including the girls, carried more than one mobile phone. Definitely, their salaries will not take them anywhere near home.
But is it the case of salaries not enough to take people home or is it a case of misplaced priorities? Is it a case that people are not planning their lives and therefore their finances well enough?
When some of us started working after the University, driving a car, whether brand new or second hand was not top on our minds. That is not to say that we did not have needs for cars. It was not a priority. Today, young graduates get to the work place and already they have their shopping list in the other hand as they complete their personal record forms for their HR departments. They want cars, they want the latest blackberry phones, they want to wear designer clothes and soon want to have their own flats or homes. Can you blame them?
Theirs is a spoon-fed world. From primary through to secondary school, they were driven in air conditioned cars to their school gates. Cars would wait for them to take them home immediately school finishes. They are consulted as to what meals they would prefer for the day – it is nothing like take it or leave it as it happened in our days.
As undergraduates at the university, they drove expensive cars, over and above what their lecturers were driving around campus. Their pocket moneys were probably more than the salaries of their lecturers and most probably far more than what they would ever get as their first salaries. They went on holidays abroad every long vacation and came back with suitcases of designer wears for lectures. Some held two or more mobile phones. They certainly had the taste of good life pretty early so how on earth, now that they were working and those generous pocket monies may have ceased coming, would their salaries take them comfortably home?
In a world where there seems to be so much competition for material things, working for somebody and depending on their salary dictates will always create frictions. What is going round for all may never be enough for some. Encouraging entrepreneurship and giving it a focus is a must for us. Entrepreneurship will not only tickle people to make money for themselves but it will also create wealth and boost the economy. Already we worry about high levels of unemployment which is even compounded by the churning out of thousands of graduates each year by our private universities because we do not get corresponding job openings to absorb them. Maybe the route to go is to get the Accreditation Board to start insisting on entrepreneurship training as an alternative to any new private university or training institution that applies to be accredited.
Working for salaries may never be enough and that is why focusing on and encouraging business entrepreneurs in the system will help our course. When people are working for themselves, the constant pressure on the state as the largest employer eases, there would be more focus on getting efficiencies in the system, perhaps salaries of the few may improve and the stress on people to do multiples of jobs would lessen.
At least, people would not only be getting home at the end of the month with their pockets well lined but they would also cut down on those stressful income “top-up” jobs during their spare times.
vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com
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