Opinion | Collective Punishment

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By Alagie Saidy-Barrow 


Let me begin by saying I am a huge advocate for holding people accountable for their work. If people are being paid to deliver services to the public, they should be held accountable for the services they deliver, good or bad. So I am all for realistic performance evaluations. If I had my way, every single government civil or public servant would be on a contract that is tethered to their performance! 


I don’t think anyone should be in the service of the people as a public or civil servant when they somehow manage to serve themselves while the people they claim to be serving remain destitute. Serving in government should never be a vehicle for any public or civil servant to get rich when the majority of those they serve are poor! 


Imagine if my Bandam established performance evaluations for himself and all his ministers and made it all public! We will all know what each minister is required to deliver and can easily hold them to account. 


That thought brings me to the news about NAWEC staff being ducked 5% of their salaries because they didn’t meet Key Performance Indicators (KPI) targets set for 2021-2022. Reading the news about this deduction, I kept hoping that they would tell us that 5% only affects staff who occupy certain leadership positions. But from what I see in the news, it seems that is not the case. It is essentially collective punishment!! I don’t see how a lowly engineer bears the same responsibility as a director or manager such that they should be equally punished. There is no such reality as collective responsibility where there is a hierarchy and different functions. Therefore, I think the collective punishment is timidity at best. 


Wouldn’t it have been better to get to the root cause of why NAWEC has been failing Gambians for decades? Is NAWEC properly equipped to deliver on its mandate? If not, who is responsible for that? You cannot hold an institution accountable when you haven’t provided it with the necessary resources to succeed. 


Collective punishment dilutes individual responsibility. There is a reason some people at NAWEC are paid more than others. It is because they don’t all have the same or equal responsibilities. And if they don’t all have the same responsibilities and are paid based on who bears more responsibility, why must they be punished equally? It does not make sense to me and smells of a cop-out by the government.


About the Author

The author is a social and political commentator


Publisher’s Note


Views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. Want to be a contributing author? Please email opmail220@gmail.com



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