A culture of theft ...
One thing that has become abundantly clear to me over the last few months and days is how much of a problem employee theft is in Africa. In my talks with the operations managers of some of the biggest manufacturing countries in Malawi, I remember some of the things they said …
- “Disease is a huge problem for Malawi agriculture. But there is one bigger problem: theft by employees. This is the reason so many businesses go bankrupt.”
- “These locals will steal anything they can: chickens, pens, fuel, phone air time. They are clever. They spend 8-9 hours a day thinking how they can steal from you so you cannot catch them.”
This was reinforced when I returned to Chimoio yesterday to have lunch with some old clients. We were at our favourite pub, and the owner was talking to us. My friends complained to the owner that – particularly when the patrons were drunk – the waiters had a habit of adding extra to the bill. The owner was shocked – disbelieving! – and encouraged us to tell her next time it happened.
It didn’t take long. Minutes later, when the waiter brought out the bill, he’d managed to “miscalculate” – doubling the total. She was furious – I can see why some say “hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn”- and threatened to kill him with a knife when he wasn’t looking, amongst numerous other swear words in Portuguese! We walked away, justified in our judgment, shaking our heads; our negative generalisations about employee theft in Africa reinforced.
Star Trek: Nemesis – an unlikely avenue for inspiration
A few nights ago, in Malawi, I was watching the final round of the US Masters at some crazy hour in the morning (Go Tiger!). Now golf is a slow game, with numerous breaks – making it perfect for ‘co-watching’ another TV show at the same time. The only other thing worth watching at exactly that time was the latest Star Trek move – ‘Nemesis’ – starring everyone’s favourite bald guy, Patrick Stewart, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
In this movie, Picard’s enemy (aka his nemesis…!) was a young commander who has been designed with exactly the same DNA as Jean-Luc Picard himself, only years younger. Picard, a peaceful and compassionate captain, is disgusted by the violent and destructive nature of his nemesis – a wicked commander who has assassinated many and intended to do the same to Picard, not to mention planet earth.
In one of the most heated non-violent exchanges in the movie, Picard confronts his nemesis with how evil and wrong his plans are, appealing to his sense of moral decency. His enemy’s response is one of the classic quotes of the movie, provoking a philosophical dilemma for Picard …
“I am a mirror to you, Captain. If you had been through what I have been through – years of torture at the hands of my oppressors – you would be doing exactly the same thing.”
If I was an African, would I be doing exactly the same thing?
It is grossly unfair to say that all or even the majority of the sub-Saharan African workers are thieves. However, it is a true observation that employee theft is a massive problem here, and many poor African workers regularly engage in theft.
Before I had thought about this yesterday, it was just a business consideration, a cultural quirk which reduced the profitability of my clients; a risk to be managed. But now, as I reflect on this, like Jean-Luc Picard, it becomes a personally challenging question: if I was an African, earning less than 2 Australian dollars a day, without hope or ability to accelerate my career or start my own business, would I turn to opportunistic theft from my employer?
I am reminded of my own Australian ancestry – a colony of criminals who settled here some 200 years ago. No doubt some of them were violent thieves – but many we now view as victims of the poverty of their time. Hungry and impoverished in Britain, poverty had left them with no other option but to take the risk and steal to support their family. The question begs again: if I was a poor man with no job and a family to support, would I steal too? And, if I did, would this be wrong? My fault?
I don’t know what the answer is – and, unfair as this world is – I will probably never need to face that dilemma in a real way. Neither am I suggesting that truly malicious crooks and robbers don’t exist – Africa has many of them, as do all countries (regards to Rodney Adler if he’s reading this from jail). But understanding that many African beggars and thieves are simply acting in response to the circumstances destiny has imposed on them at least encourages me to be more compassionate and less judgmental …
A little kid in Malawi trying to figure out how to pump water against a backdrop of drought-ridden maize.
If that was me … what kind of person would I have turned out to be?
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