The project to rescue the country from the precipitous slide it has found itself in through the insidious combination of dismal political leadership and state capture is one that falls to each and every citizen.
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No individual sector, be it business or politics or the non-governmental and faith based organisations, can hope to arrest the slide on their own. It will require a combined and concerted effort by all.
One of the most potent contributions citizens can make is volunteerism, as encapsulated in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ‘Thuma Mina’ exhortation to the nation.
This giving of time, expertise, or support towards the betterment of a community, and ultimately the country as a whole is one of the easiest, yet most potent weapon to effect meaningful change.
Offer to help
Volunteers can choose a field, sector or community grouping that most resonates with their values and personal expectations, so that their efforts and contributions become less of a chore and more of a reward.
I would like to focus the rest of this article on a particular sector of the populace, namely retired professionals.
It is common cause that professionals are retiring younger, either completely or scaling back their working commitments to spend more time with family.
These ‘young’ retirees are a huge untapped reservoir of talent that if appropriately harnessed could make a massive impact on many spheres of public life. I have written previously about the serious underperformance of local government in meeting the needs of the populace and executing projects.
Golden opportunity
The most common reason put forwarded in defence by municipal officials and politicians is lack of capacity and skills. In my interaction with this cadre of professionals, most are willing to volunteer their time to address these shortcomings. However, most who attempted to came away thoroughly disillusioned by their short interactions due to:
- A cold and unappreciative welcome by incumbents who felt threatened and undermined
- Poor organisation by managers and dismal timekeeping
- Constant cancellations or rescheduling of meetings or training sessions
- Poor attendance by potential beneficiaries
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Local government structures need to seriously up their game, lest they lose out on a golden opportunity to significantly improve their operational capacity. They need to strategically tap into this reservoir by:
- Profiling and identifying the skills and competencies available
- Creating an enabling environment amongst existing staff to ensure success of projects
- Ensure resources and logistics are well managed and made available
- Acknowledging the contributions made
A similar, if smaller pool of foreign professionals who spend part of the year in our region have also expressed a willingness to participate in such ‘upliftment’ projects.
Apart from local government departments, sectors such as health and education could also benefit handsomely from well-managed strategic collaborations with retired professionals from these fields.
After matriculating, Vijay Naidoo studied Economics in the UK. Upon his return, hejoined the family construction business as MD for 10 years.
He subsequently joined his sister in their furniture manufacturing business as director for quality assurance and operations. He was responsible for all quality aspects of their products, and led the project to the business achieving an ISO 9000 quality accreditation. As an export focused business, this was important for our international competitiveness.
Mr Naidoo has an abiding interest in quality management and productivity improvement, particularly in manufacturing.
More recently, he has focused a lot of his time on giving back to the community by way of mentorship of small businesses and sitting on the executive of the South Coast Chamber of Commerce. He also sits on the Board of the Ugu South Coast Development Agency.
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