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Leading a business is a risky adventure all over the world, made of uncertainty, effort and sacrifice.
But in Senegal, this adventure takes on the look of daily fight against a deeply rooted social and professional reality : The lack of professional awareness and the systematic predation of staff towards their employer.
If the surrounding discourse glorifies entrepreneurship as a royal path to development, the truth is quite different.
Many businesses die not because their economic model is bad, or because their leaders lack competence or resources, but because their employees deliberately or unconsciously sabotage their march forward.
This manifesto does not seek to avoid susceptibility. It is about telling the truth, with firmness and severity, about a reality scandalous, unjust and dishonest, which stifles private initiative and discourages generations of investors, including the most patriotic in the diaspora.
A professional conscience absent: when excuse becomes a way of life
Delays: a banality established as a norm
In Senegal, it has become almost culturally accepted thatan employee never arrives on time. The justifications are infinite and often grotesque:
- « It was raining, I couldn't come to work » ;
- « I was blocked by traffic jams » (while these traffic jams are daily and therefore predictable);
- « I had to accompany my mother to the hospital. » ;
- « I have a death or baptism ».
These pretexts become rituals.
Every day, an employee finds an excuse to justify his nonchalance, and the employer, powerless, finds the loss of productivity.
Absences: the triumph of the social and religious pretext
On Friday, at 1 p.m., many of the employees disappeared on the pretext of going to the mosque to pray. Very few people then return to their workplaces. The weekend thus begins on Friday afternoon, turning the legal work week into a parody.
During the major religious demonstrations – Magal de Touba, Gamou de Tivaouane, or others – absences are no longer counted in days but weeks. A single religious holiday becomes an entire week of widespread absenteeism. Companies then slow down, as if economic survival could wait.
The remuneration required without consideration
At the end of the month, these same employees demand their wages, sometimes with insistence, without ever asking whether they gave the company real consideration. For many, work is not a commitment, but a commitment. a right to an income, regardless of the productivity provided.
A predatory behavior: business as a prey to exploit
Theft and small daily predation
Many managers find with bitterness that their business is being emptied by repeated flights. These range from subtilized office supplies to goods sold under the coat.
In the restaurant, it is common for cashiers to rake on the cash register or for employees to leave with food for their loved ones. The employee does not consider this to be theft, but a sort of « premium » he grants himself.
Conflicts of interest and parallel activities
The most destructive case is that of the employee who carries out in parallel a personal activity identical or competing with that of the enterprise.
In commerce, he diverts customers to his own shop.
In transport, he uses the company's vehicle for personal purposes.
In services, he offers his skills directly to clients by short-circuiting his employer.
This duplicity is a real cancer for the company, which sees its market undermined from the inside by those who it pays.
The logic of « resourcefulness »
The unofficial motto is simple: « We don't get rich by working, but by getting done ». This deep-rooted mentality encourages opportunistic and fraudulent behaviour.
The employer is perceived not as a partner but as a partner. « milk cow » to the maximum benefit, often to the detriment of the survival of the enterprise itself.
Historical and cultural heritage: when the past stifles the future
Post-Independence Civil Service Culture
At independence, the Senegalese State was the main employer. Dozens of thousands of civil servants were hired without control mechanisms or a culture of performance. The work consisted of « be present », without obligation to perform.
This mentality of « presence without productivity » has been transmitted from generation to generation and has been infiltrated into the private sector.
A sacralisation of the social at the expense of the economy
In Senegal, family and community take precedence over everything, including business. A death in the village, a baptism, a religious ceremony become absolute priorities, regardless of professional activity. The company always passes. This social heritage, although culturally understandable, becomes economically suicidal.
Diaspora: Patriotism crushed by local reality
Senegalese from the diaspora who invest in the country leave with noble intentions: create jobs, transfer their expertise, contribute to development. But very quickly, they encounter passive hostility of their staff.
Standardized in Europe, Canada or the United States, where work is rigorous and structured, they discover a world where seriousness is considered naivety and where their money is seen as « Falling from Heaven ».
Many are considered to be « milk cows » supposed to distribute wages and tolerate all abuses. The result: many projects end up failing, not because the market is bad, but because the staff is disloyal and predatory.
Survival solutions: firmness, control and disillusionment
Constantly behind employees
The manager is forced to adopt a permanent proximity management. Lack of supervision immediately results in abuse. In a small business without structured internal control, it becomes a hell for the owner, exhausted from still in the position of « Constable ».
Authoritarian management as the only bulwark
Many eventually imitate the Lebanese living in Senegal, known for their firmness. The latter are permanently present in their companies, immediately sanction any deviation and spend their days reprimanding.
This severity, although psychologically difficult, is sometimes the only way to ensure a minimum of discipline..
A Manifesto for Change
The truth is hard, but it must be said: The main obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship in Senegal is not the state, nor taxation, nor lack of funding. This brake is the lack of professional awareness and predatory behaviour of a large proportion of salaried personnel.
As long as employees consider the company to be a milk cow rather than a collective project, as long as absences, delays, thefts and conflicts of interest are tolerated, no policy to support entrepreneurship will bear fruit.
Entrepreneurs must understand that their survival requires:
- the establishment of strict rules and immediate sanctions;
- recruitment based on competence and loyalty, not on the social bond ;
- the introduction of control systems, even rudimentary ones, to prevent drift;
- constant vigilance and firmness.
But beyond individual solutions, it is a real cultural revolution that must be initiated: restore the value of the work, instill discipline, and place the collective interest above immediate interests. Without this, entrepreneurship will remain a lost battle in Senegal.
