Two-day weekly holiday: A blow to the economy

Government usually provides transport to a very limited number of officials located mostly in metropolitan area. On the other hand, most government officials all over the country use their own or public transport. If the decision is meant to give them relief, then it must have been assumed that they will remain confined to their homes during this additional day as holiday. Obviously, such an assumption is totally naive to say the least. Many may spend time on social or recreational visits, and it will be more likely to increase their total monthly transport cost. In fact, that is what has already been observed in Dhaka on Thursday, September 8, when buses and launches were reported to be overflowing with passengers intending to leave Dhaka and passengers had to pay higher fares by 50 to 100 percent.

Government employees constitute a small portion of the total work-force in the country and the concern for those who are outside the government sector did not seem to enter into the decision-making matrix of the government in this respect. It is quite extraordinary that the government chooses to be unconcerned about the major portion of the country's work force that will not get the benefit of two-day weekly holiday.

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It may be argued that since the total working hours in a week remains the same, the productivity in the government offices may not suffer. If this line of argument is valid, then it should be the same if government and semi-government offices are kept open from 7 am to 5:30 pm with a break of one hour for launch and prayer for 4 days with 3 days weekly holiday covering Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

In fact, this issue is neither so simple nor is amenable to such an arithmetic solution. No government can work in a vacuum or in isolation. What happens to the rest of the economy should be the critical consideration. In our socio-economic and administrative framework, a vast array of activities directly and indirectly involve some form of governmental action. These include activities in the field of trade and commerce including international trade, utility services like electricity, telephone, water, and gas, as well as police and law and order related services, etc, and the list can be almost endless. Shut down for two consecutive days and inevitable delay in governmental actions where private sector activities are directly and indirectly related will adversely affect the national efficiency and productivity. This efficiency and productivity loss cannot be averted with ad hoc type action of keeping some offices like customs office and banks open at few locations. Most of the activities in a given sector are so interconnected that efficiency cannot be maintained with disjointed and ad hoc actions.

The whole process with respect to the change in weekly holiday appears to be shrouded in a mystery. The government decided on two-day weekly holiday immediately after the announcement of fuel price hike. These two decisions were announced almost simultaneously. There was hardly any public debate or discussion on such a matter of public importance. The process followed, swiftness with which decision was taken without hardly any public discussion, and apparently the flimsy reason given to justify two-day weekly holiday give credence to a widely held perception that it was politically motivated and that the government wanted to pamper government officials to win their goodwill at this critical time when parliamentary election is not far off or a show down with the opposition is imminent.

Under the prevailing condition of widespread corruption in government offices, one wonders whether additional scope is now created for increased corruption. Since the major technique used in extracting bribe is the delay in taking decision or action, an additional day of automatic delay is certain to boost opportunity for increased bribe.

Most of the developed countries have two-day weekly holidays but that cannot serve as a model for ours. The structure of their economy, their system of work, the linkages and networks they have established among different institutions in the private and public sector and the technological support in facilitating smooth functioning of their system are so well planned and organised as to enable their economies to function smoothly with two-day weekly holiday. Without fulfilling those preconditions, switching to two-day weekly holiday for a country like ours is like putting the cart before the horse.

Five-day working week is related to the stage of development of a country and that is what is the lesson from the present day developed countries. Weekly working hours for these countries came down from 54 to 48 and finally to 40 hours. When these countries were at a much higher level of development than ours, they used to work for 48 hours a week At present, their official working hours in a week are 40 as against 37.5 in our case. Even these 37.5 hours are merely theoretical.

According to the practice as observed in the government offices here, actual working hours in a week may not exceed 33 hours if we allow for half an hour for habitually delayed arrival in the morning, and one hour instead of half an hour for lunch and prayer. To earmark half an hour for launch and prayer in government approved timing for working hours is totally unrealistic and this appears to be rather a bluff designed to show inflated working hours. In addition, designated national holidays in a year in Bangladesh total 21 days as against only about 10 in case of developed countries. Thus, the average weekly working hours over a year get further reduced in our case.

The implication of two-day weekly holidays with Friday and Saturday will be grave for international transactions especially with respect to export and import. Bangladesh will be cut off from the rest of the world for 3 days in a week and this may be specially devastating for the export sector.

There is absolutely no justification for declaring Friday as a weekly holiday. It is not a religious requirement. On the other hand, it affects very adversely our international transactions, including international trade and investment. Given the practical advantage, Friday is a working day in many other Muslim countries including Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It is quite strange that we pride ourselves on being a moderate Muslim country and characterise our people as non-communal and tolerant, and on the other hand shy away from declaring Friday as a working day, in spite of clear exhortation in the holy Koran to work on Fridays, ostensibly because of not offending the religious sensitivities of ordinary Muslims. How it can offend the religious sensitivities of Muslims is beyond anybody's comprehension. It is mainly due to the opportunism and timidity on the part of our two dominant political parties that Fridays continue to remain as holidays.

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. Almost half of its population lives below the poverty line. Our human development indices are deplorably low and we are even the lowest amongst the Saarc countries. Under this situation, can our government offices afford to work for such shorter hours as indicated above?

Historically, the role played by the government in the development of western industrialised economies or emerging tiger economies in the Asean region proved to be crucial. Here in our case, government needs to play such a vital role if our economy has to develop rapidly. The government has to set the pace and lead by example. To work for shorter hours and to enjoy two-day weekly holidays at our level of development is an obnoxious luxury and certainly not the kind of examples which will move the country forward.

It would be really commendable if Bangladesh could switch to one-day weekly holiday with Sunday as the weekly holiday. Moreover, total working hours in a week should be at least 40 instead of the existing theoretical 37.5.

Dr. Islam is a former United Nations advisor.