ORGANISATIONAL TOOLS THAT BECOME INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE: DISCIPLINARY CODE

 CODE OF DISCIPLINE

 

If you think that being forced to work, in the case of slavery was bad enough, BEING FORCED NOT TO WORK or out of it particularly by unjustly applied or manipulated disciplinary code is worse! It is dehumanising and torture. Most people or the general public in Zambia in this era seem to turn a blind eye to this or they are uncomfortable, or fearful or indifferent to decisively handle it or have it squarely addressed. When I looked up the word 'torture' in the Collins Cobuild Advanced Dictionary, I was satisfied that it means 'to deliberately cause great pain over a period of time in order to punish'; 'to cause to suffer great mental or physical pain or anxiety'. Where a disciplinary code is used without following laid down procedure and with the aim to fix someone, people become victims of hateful vendetta, or shameless and evil hounding at the hands of those who wield power or command it in organisations. I have not only heard about their suffering, I have also witnessed people being victimised and stripped of their hard earned incomes by a director with egoistical force and witch-hunt intent as if they are not accountable to anybody in a Quasi-Government institution.

 

That institution which is under a key Ministry in this country is successfully managed or run like it is a personal business, with intimidation, abuse of authority or office, and corruption to the extent that people wonder WHO the director of that institution knows or what strings they pull in the governance system to have any scrutiny off their back and get away with serious misconduct and abuse. One of the funniest situations was when they allegedly registered to attend two workshops at the same time, and lodged at one of the venues with their family. They also allegedly had an institutional vehicle which is just about five years old, 'evaluated' and bought off at a mere K35,000! The director is not satisfied with defrauding the institution by getting what is not theirs, or at least at little cost to them; they must defraud and torture all employees whom they don't like or they perceive to be “against” them by managing to unjustly and manipulatively use an organisational tool that has in-built rules and procedures, transparency and fairness. They craftily unilaterally suspend and dismiss employees and withhold some of their benefits. Somehow that director overrides all the rules and procedures, and all that go with that through a bogus disciplinary procedure. A number of employees have literally been forced not to work and out of it, and their lives shattered through unfounded or trumped-up charges, suspensions and unfair dismissals!

 

Many employees have been tortured while the Board and the parent Ministry watches; meanwhile the victims and their families squirm in untold psychological, physical and economic agony, without any hope of recourse. The irony is that while the institution itself represents something of law and justice, it has instead been made to perpetrate horrifying forms of injustice, abuse of authority and corruption through one person, the director. Finances meant to pay what is owed to staff and unduly dismissed employees are used to pay legal fees and purchase new motor vehicles. Should this be allowed to pass down history ignored and/or treated as unimportant? Where is justice for the victims of torture through the misapplied, abused, and manipulated disciplinary code of the institution? And where is justice to condemn the wrongdoer? By the way, the director will get their benefits when their contract (which one wonders why and how it was renewed under the circumstances) ends, leaving the institution obviously worse off! Usually those who have no other source of help and whose hope and strength have been stretched to the limit appeal to H.E. the President for help or intervention; I am humbly and heartily asking no less on behalf of the victims; napempa kuli atate aziko ba E.C.L. Their voices have even been stifled because they don’t believe such things have happened or have been let to happen by people who shouldn’t have let them get to that point in the first place. Albert Einstein said, “The world is dangerous to live in, not because of those who hurt, but because of those who watch and let it happen” and Desmond Tutu echoed something similar when he uttered that, ”If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, it is because you have chosen the camp of the oppressor.” Time of reckoning will surely come.

 

 

 

BEWARE OF THESE THREE (3) THINGS AS YOU BEGIN 2019

What would you say, how would you feel, and what would you do, about not being able to spend Christmas and the beginning of a New Year with your dear family and/or friend(s)? I know most certainly I would get zillion varied answers to these questions. Well for the first time after thirteen years, my wife reminded me early this morning, the 1^st of January 2019 that we are spending this day apart from each other. It is our first-time vapid experience of the day we have otherwise advertently enjoyed together! Circumstances have robbed us of a lot, and I assure you it is neither by deliberate nor imprudent choice. It would not be a fallacy to guess, or better still judiciously say that you have already responded to some or all of that. 

Familiarly, in my response to my wife’s exposure of the present reality, it was literally like being wakened up to acknowledge the staring, lonely, and incising fact.

IS IT I, LORD?

Matthew 26v20-22

When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?"

When Omniscience speaks, we must listen! We must respond appropriately and still look to the Holy and Righteous One. But we human beings often forget and quickly so, what we are in our natural (fallen) selves that we are sinners, betrayers of the Lord and of one another at our best! We are fleeting shadows in the economy of God’s creation. Honestly, how do you pose such a question to THE GREAT I AM as though you doubt Him? I see such questioning of the Omniscient and all-seeing Almighty God by awe-bereft creatures of the dust as perplexing and almost sacrilege (when you look at Simon Peter’s confession and Jesus’ response in Matthew 16v13-17; Mark 8v29; John 6v68; Luke 9v20-22). I do not disparage the disciples at all. But how could John or Peter for instance simply not cry if he really distrusted himself, for the Lord to prevent the betraying, knowing the seriousness of the matter? Check Matthew 14v28-30.