JEDDAH, 5 March — If you are a government employee, you can report late for work, leave early and escape serious punishment.
This is the finding of a recent study, which found that half of all government employees regularly report late for work. And an even greater number leave office before the end of official working hours. Moreover, almost 70 percent slip away during working hours — before returning only to punch their attendance cards.
The punishment: in most cases, a verbal reprimand.
The study, conducted by Dr. Muhammad Al-Muhanna and Dr. Salah Al-Ma’ayouf of the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh, found that 50 percent of government employees turn up late each day, while 54 percent leave the office early. Of those who leave office during working hours but then return to punch their cards, 26 percent said they spend up to three hours or more every day away from the office.
The study — details of which recently appeared in Al-Madinah newspaper — covered 2,200 public sector employees from a variety of social and educational backgrounds.
The highest rate of absenteeism was reported among those employees with higher qualifications.
Some 16 percent of all employees were found to have “zero level contribution” to their work environment because they simply come and go and do nothing.
The performance of government departments has been a subject of continuous debate by officials and the public. Recently, Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, urged government departments to address such issues more urgently.
The crown prince threatened to sack incompetent civil servants if they fail to carry out their duties conscientiously.
Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, has vowed to implement the instructions issued by the crown prince to bring about a better performance. He described the circular as an ideal yardstick by which the performance of governmental agencies should be measured.
Various reasons were given by those polled for arriving late or leaving before the end of official working hours. The most common were: a family member falling sick, traffic jams, and children needing to be ferried to and from school. Other reasons included exhaustion, attending to urgent family matters, or leaving the office because there was no work there which needed doing.
Regarding the kind of disciplinary measures taken by their departments, 8.6 percent of those polled reported that there was none taken at all, while the majority — 64.9 percent — said their superiors merely verbally drew the matter to their attention. Just over 13 percent said they receive written warnings when reporting late, and a similar number said punishment included a deduction from their salary.
