By Hala Al-Qahtani
AN employee named Ghassan was appointed in charge of pharmacy at a small hospital at a remote place. His appointment was made without considering his qualifications and abilities and he was the only person working in the pharmacy those days. His continuous, dedicated services to the hospital director helped him get that job. When the hospital director comes late or becomes absent, Ghassan would keep his office open, spread some files on his table and place a hot coffee on his table. When the coffee gets cold he replaced it with another until the director arrives in his office.
When the director is unable to come to office, Ghassan would collect all the papers, applications and documents from his table and take them to his house. He would also volunteer his services to take the director’s children to school. On many occasions the pharmacist’s humanitarian services reached its peak as he was ready to bring requirements of the director’s house from market. This will help the director’s wife to be with her husband taking care of him.
During this time patients and their relatives queued in front the pharmacy seeking medicine. After several years the director retired and Ghassan became the director not because he was well-qualified or being a brilliant manager but because the old director loved him. The hospital later underwent expansion and many young men and women of the city came seeking jobs. But Ghassan was not happy with the applicants’ degree certificates from local universities.
He refused to employ Saudis saying their qualifications did not cope with job requirements of the hospital. At this point his only son graduated from the secondary school and he announced the hospital’s decision to send 10 students abroad for higher education at its expense and his son was put on top of the list not because of his academic excellence but because his father’s administrative power.
One and a half years after his son traveled to a foreign country for education, Dr. Ghassan appointed his pampered daughter in an administrative position with a huge salary to remove her loneliness after her brother’s journey abroad. She was appointed through another officer to give the impression that it was not done under Ghassan’s influence. People started talking about these appointments at the hospital and created a big hue and cry.
Some called for fighting unemployment among Saudis while others called for questioning Ghassan for his corrupt administration. They wanted to know how he got a doctorate degree all of a sudden. Another group of people called for his resignation. Ghassan felt that threatening voices were gaining force around him and he appointed an official to reject job applications of Saudis. He recruited foreign workers to fill the existing vacancies.
An investigation acquitted the man as non-guilty. He returned to work and held a big conference attended by his staff members where he gave a historic speech highlighting the need to fight corruption. He declared that a campaign would be launched shortly to promote fairness and sincerity at work. He warned against those employees who accused him of corruption.
During the same week, he fired a group of employees and in their place hired some of his friends and relatives. The remaining staff members had no choice but to keep mum for fear of punishment.
This incident may give the wrong message that one has to ignore what is happening around him/her to live peacefully in this world. We will be in a conflict with our conscience, which refuses to confront an error with another error. Small mistakes will lead to big scandals if we show leniency toward them, by keeping mum. We should be careful about such corrupt practices as they would swallow our future and that of our children and the country.
Management positions in Arab countries will bring out the best and worst of a person. If a qualified and efficient person is appointed in that position he will work with responsibility to produce the best out of him introducing innovative ideas. An unqualified person, who got the position as a result of wasta or influence, would be a failure as he would produce the worst out of him. Everybody would be awaiting the downfall of such individuals and they would not be able to do their job effectively.
Employees who have served the country for several years, backed by their hard work, would be able to quickly identify those individuals who reached top positions through wasta. Unqualified individuals would not be able to recognize skilled and outstanding people.
Leadership positions are sensitive. We should know that decisions taken by any manager or director would be scrutinized by his subordinates. Even if a person is the head of a department with limited powers or a chief executive of a private company or a senior government official or a minister, he/she should know that his/her actions are monitored by the whole nation.
