For business-friendly weekly holidays
Friday, 27 November 2009
Mohammad Ali
THE Foreign Investors' Chamber of Commerce (FICCI) has pleaded, again, for changing the present holiday schedule and declaring the working week from Monday to Friday. The president of the FICCI reiterated this the other day at a function held in Dhaka. Other leading chamber bodies of the country have also been making a similar demand for a long time as, in their understanding, the prevailing weekly holidays schedule is not a business-friendly one.
The present weekly holiday's schedule of two days on Friday and Saturday was welcomed by government employees and others who have a rather comfortable existence unlike the very competitive occupations of others in the population. Civil servants and many of those who work in non-government organisations (NGOs) and similar organisations do not have to compete so much with others at the local and international levels for the safety and assurance of their earnings. The regular remunerations of these classes are ensured by the government and their non government employing bodies respectively.
The same is not the case with business organisations which have a stake in remaining at work as long as possible throughout the week to be able to run viably their business operations. More and not less work is the key to success in businesses and also uninterrupted working conditions. Businesses also create and provide the lion's share of the country's wealth and income. They keep the government going in the financial sense with their taxes, levies, charges and other payments in a myriad of ways. Thus, they ought to be regarded as very important stakeholders in the running of the country or its economy. No government should be complacent about the rightful demand of businesses because smooth operations of business organisations also translate into very major contribution towards the economic security of the country. The government itself is so much dependent on the success of business for its own resourcefulness in the form of getting amply various revenues.
Businesses in Bangladesh are substantially linked to the world outside and international trade is very largely and fruitfully carried with the developed countries where weekly holidays are observed on Saturday and Sunday. Thus, the operationalisation of weekly holidays on Friday and Saturday in Bangladesh has meant that its business operators remain cut off from international contacts for three days at a stretch ; three out of the seven working days are being lost to them as a result.
How could the government overlook the prevailing weekly holidays in other Islamic countries ? In Pakistan, for example, which is an Islamic republic, Sunday and not Friday is the weekly holiday. The same is observed in Malaysia and some other Muslim countries. There is nothing in the Islamic tradition that forbids work after the weekly Jumma prayers on Friday. Therefore, apart from a short interval for the Jumma prayers on Friday, there is no reason for that day to be not a full working day and Bangladeshis are not going to be less pious or less Islamic for working on Friday. But these conditions were ignored to favour the rather populist decision to retain the holiday on Friday with an eye for some sections of voters to the serious detriment of the country's economy or its businesses.
Then, there is also the point of whether a country like Bangladesh should be reducing its work hours so much as part of conservation of resources in the face of stresses showing up on the macro economy. The view of most of the professionals and economists is the opposite. They say that the best way to cope with the situation is carrying out austerity or frugality in spending where the same would matter and redouble our productive work efforts in support of greater economic or business activities. This is their more credible proposal for coming out of the woods in the economic sense and that would involve not lengthening the weekly holidays but shortening it. In other words, one day holiday on Sunday seems to be the right course of action to take.
THE Foreign Investors' Chamber of Commerce (FICCI) has pleaded, again, for changing the present holiday schedule and declaring the working week from Monday to Friday. The president of the FICCI reiterated this the other day at a function held in Dhaka. Other leading chamber bodies of the country have also been making a similar demand for a long time as, in their understanding, the prevailing weekly holidays schedule is not a business-friendly one.
The present weekly holiday's schedule of two days on Friday and Saturday was welcomed by government employees and others who have a rather comfortable existence unlike the very competitive occupations of others in the population. Civil servants and many of those who work in non-government organisations (NGOs) and similar organisations do not have to compete so much with others at the local and international levels for the safety and assurance of their earnings. The regular remunerations of these classes are ensured by the government and their non government employing bodies respectively.
The same is not the case with business organisations which have a stake in remaining at work as long as possible throughout the week to be able to run viably their business operations. More and not less work is the key to success in businesses and also uninterrupted working conditions. Businesses also create and provide the lion's share of the country's wealth and income. They keep the government going in the financial sense with their taxes, levies, charges and other payments in a myriad of ways. Thus, they ought to be regarded as very important stakeholders in the running of the country or its economy. No government should be complacent about the rightful demand of businesses because smooth operations of business organisations also translate into very major contribution towards the economic security of the country. The government itself is so much dependent on the success of business for its own resourcefulness in the form of getting amply various revenues.
Businesses in Bangladesh are substantially linked to the world outside and international trade is very largely and fruitfully carried with the developed countries where weekly holidays are observed on Saturday and Sunday. Thus, the operationalisation of weekly holidays on Friday and Saturday in Bangladesh has meant that its business operators remain cut off from international contacts for three days at a stretch ; three out of the seven working days are being lost to them as a result.
How could the government overlook the prevailing weekly holidays in other Islamic countries ? In Pakistan, for example, which is an Islamic republic, Sunday and not Friday is the weekly holiday. The same is observed in Malaysia and some other Muslim countries. There is nothing in the Islamic tradition that forbids work after the weekly Jumma prayers on Friday. Therefore, apart from a short interval for the Jumma prayers on Friday, there is no reason for that day to be not a full working day and Bangladeshis are not going to be less pious or less Islamic for working on Friday. But these conditions were ignored to favour the rather populist decision to retain the holiday on Friday with an eye for some sections of voters to the serious detriment of the country's economy or its businesses.
Then, there is also the point of whether a country like Bangladesh should be reducing its work hours so much as part of conservation of resources in the face of stresses showing up on the macro economy. The view of most of the professionals and economists is the opposite. They say that the best way to cope with the situation is carrying out austerity or frugality in spending where the same would matter and redouble our productive work efforts in support of greater economic or business activities. This is their more credible proposal for coming out of the woods in the economic sense and that would involve not lengthening the weekly holidays but shortening it. In other words, one day holiday on Sunday seems to be the right course of action to take.