Celebrating the Year of the African Employee
The African
employee handles, manages and turns-over 95% of the continents production on
farms, firms, factories, fisheries and yet owns far less than 5% of its wealth.
30% of African employees drive upwards of 65% of national economic gross
domestic product GDP. The African employee provides upwards of 70% of national
labor forces that prop up 35% of national economies in small business
enterprises. Nonetheless, the uncelebrated African employee has lost the zeal
to live in the registered economy, but remains responsible for building the
nation alongside feeding and educating extended family of between five to
fifteen individuals on a daily wage that is below the axiomatic poverty line. A
line that shifts violently in the breeze of political foreign exchange rates. Yet the
African employee is the bedrock of the society paying the burden of unserviced
government taxes and carrying the future of more than a billion people in miniature wage
packets. Odd as it may seem, many employees on their dream jobs, or on jobs
many dream of, earning far above the poverty wage line, number among those living
from hand to mouth, month on month, from wage to wage. Creating personal wealth
is really not a goal or priority. Most interestingly, if you are reading this
article, chances are 9:10 that you are an employee falling in one of the
categories described above. Read on you may learn something about your past and
gain the power to substantially change your future.
HISTORY
The African
employee has not always lived like this. For more than a thousand years, the
employee lived on free range enterprise in a vast land of abundant resources where
expansion was purely physical and geographic. Capital was acquired by the
strength of one’s arm, aspiration and will. There were economic wars, but the land was
large enough to accommodate economic exchange for all. The employee was an entrepreneur,
master of his craft, owner of trade and firmly in command of his destiny. All
was going well until the east and west discovered the African enterprise,
enslaved its creators and plundered its resources. His independence was violently
taken from him and he, a slave, became the item of trade in his own land, and
other lands, in the shadows of a false millennium that would be eclipsed by
colonialism. For centuries, The African employee sank deeper and deeper into
the dark, dank world of slavery. A place where broken spirits wander wistfully and
no souls exist. He enslaved his dignity, his virility and sense of enterprise. He became an auctionable item of labor bought by lot alongside Adverts for cattle,
tools, and fuel for no pay and no identity. He became a deconstruct of Adam Smith’s
inanimate economic equation of land, labor and capital for the wealth of
nations. The African employee, having lost the capacity of enterprise, denied
the opportunity and freedom to work for himself, had to work for others. So
traumatized was the employee that he forgot how to create wealth and became a consumer
instead. This memory loss caused the emigration of the employees understanding, will and capacity to own wealth, engage
in enterprise, and form capital to become a laborer. A few lucky ones were rescued
by Booker T Washington working their way up from slavery. The small number returned
to modest independent dignity, and the knowledge of creating and managing personal
wealth. Booker let them know it could be done, but many remained still born, numb
and unbelieving in the eerie mental silence of bonded slaves. For decades, The
African employee remained indentured as permanent and pensionable, only later to
become a dispensable contract feature, a paid unit of manpower with no soul, no
goals of his own; hardly ever returning from the fields of commerce with anything
to call his own.
SET GOALS
But did you know that the African employee consumes between 40-70% of any companys gross income! Where does all that money go? That money should make the employee fairly rich. The
African employee needs to regain the ground he has ceded to foreign wealth creators.
All is not lost. The employee must relearn enterprise, revise his understanding
of money, rekindle the spirit of work, engage information technology for
production, set his own life goals, create his own wealth plans and drink deep
from the well of independent creativity. To do this the employee must revisit the
purpose of employment and the personal benefits it houses that can be accrued for
posterity and not just wait for retirement. This year, do not steal, set for
yourself One goal to create personal
wealth. Do not waste your time; Set One
goal to develop yourself, and increase your knowledge, skills and understanding
of enterprise. Finally, do not waste your money; there is no
difference between your wages and capital. Set One goal to accumulate capital, invest and control your own
income streams to leverage your own and family future survival and success… then
PURSUE THOSE GOALS aggressively with all the life force in you.
Allan Bukusi is the author
of the book; How to Prosper in Employment
and creator of the Employee Empowerment Seminar,
a ninety-minute motivational presentation challenging employees to prioritize
creating personal wealth early in their careers.
