The per diems

I was listening to the BBC a while back, and it was broadcasting a story on per diems and Kenyan government officials. Wait… what is a per diem you ask? Ok. Well, it is (suppose to be) a way of compensating someone for their travel to and from an event, and sometimes to cover opportunity cost of the participants. From what I gathered from the BBC story (my reception isn’t so good here), officials have just been taking advantage of per diems because they end up boosting their annual income by so much. A per diem is normally given for attending events such as conferences and trainings. Unfortunately these officials spend most of their time at these events, racking in the per diems, and not actually being at their posts to apply what they were suppose to of gained at the events.

I live in a town in Togo. It isn’t too big. It’s called Sotouboua, and it is the capital of the prefecture. This is like saying it is the main town in the county, where most of the higher ups live and work. Every week I see the affect of per diems; from the government paid hospital workers to those working with small community associations. Let me give you a few examples of how frustrating this per diem concept is, how it has gone a little overboard, and why it is holding back progress in developing countries like Togo.

1. My town is getting a brand new market built. It is said to be “modern”, which I don’t fully understand what that means yet but can’t wait to see it. Construction only began a few weeks ago, but I can already see foundations being built. It looks like it is going to be concrete and possibly have an overhead covering. This would be a great improvement from the old market made up of wooden and mud brick booths.

Before construction began, the main investment group behind the project held a meeting in the community and invited all the local organizations. They explained what they were building, why they were building it, and that they wanted to choose one local association to manage the actual construction. The day after the meeting I was talking to a person who had been there. I was pretty excited at the thought of a new market; “Maybe if it’s closed in and not just dirt paths, the food won’t get as dusty!” I said.

“Maybe,” she responded, clearly not on my level of excitement.

“Um… but it’ll definitely be an improvement to what’s there.”

“Yes, but they never gave out a per diem.”

“If you knew they weren’t giving a per diem, would you still of gone?”

“No.”

I didn’t respond back to her in anyway negative, but what I was thinking would be too rude to type here.

This investment group travels halfway up the country from Lomé to build a whole new structure free of charge, and people here are complaining about why they didn’t hand out money.  I know that the person I talked to walked to the meeting, so there was no need to pay for travel. As far as opportunity cost, most time here is spent just hanging out, so 2 hours out of your life listening to how someone wants to help the community isn’t going to make you give up much, if anything.

Unfortunately there seems to be this underlying mentality that if something does not directly affect a person right away, they don’t really care to have a part in it.

2. About a month ago I was talking to someone about holding a training session. It would be a two day session where people would learn to be what I’ll call community health advisors. So we got into figuring out who, what, when, where, and how much. This is when per diems came up. I was of course against it, but he said that nobody would show up is I didn’t give out per diems.

Really?! I have to pay someone to give them information?

I remember back in America having to pay to learn CPR and first aid at the Red Cross. I had loans taken out for a college education. Even volunteering at a hospital never helped pay for my gas. I wasn’t doing this expecting to get paid for it. I do these things to better my opportunities in the future, or at least make me a more well-rounded person.

Now, I understand the world works by incentives. But there are many more incentives out there than just cash in hand. It is too bad that this is the one that has been ingrained in the minds of so many people here.

Well, the training session still has not happened. I wanted it to be more of a grass roots sort of thing (aka without financing), but apparently without perdiems, nobody is interested in picking up any new skills or information.

3. Each month a meeting is held in my town. At this meeting there are the people in charge of the hospital, as well as the people in charge of all the government-run clinics in the surrounding villages. They all get together and discuss work, progress, and any possible health related activities that are coming up. Most of the time is spent trying to make it through a powerpoint and excel presentation (They’re just as exciting as back home!) that reviews the stats on people taken care of in each clinic and the hospital.

They also go over things they can improve on, and sometimes talk about planning vaccination campaigns and similar projects. It takes most of the day, but there are a few breaks and lunch is provided. You even get a soda! That might sound a bit weird, but drinking a soda is not an everyday thing for me in Togo.

Nobody is ever too enthusiastic at these meeting, and I can’t really blame them. But the only time that there is a lot of commotion is at the end when everyone literally crowds around a table to sign a sheet so they can get a perdiem. There isn’t any orderly fashion to it. Everyone is just waiting over the other’s shoulder, waiting to sign their name and get their money. Sometimes they even get a poster, or brochure, or some other type of public health material donated by one of the big international NGOs.

This situation is a little bit more understandable, but only by a little. Yes, you do have to drive in from another village, so it will cover the cost of travel. But I’ve seen the price of the per diem and it is clear that they are getting more than just travel cost. Why pay this when these people are not even paid on an hourly basis? You are just adding on top of their salary. Plus, this meeting isn’t anything extraordinary. It’s just a monthly meeting to discuss reports. Yes, it is ridiculously boring, but it is part of the job. There is no reason to get paid more just to do a part of your job. They even get a good lunch provided to them.

There is something wrong when you have to pay your employees extra just to come to mandatory meetings.

How can I conclude this? Ok, I’ll try. Few people have an out look into the future here. There isn’t a strong connection between doing something today and thinking about how it is going to affect you, your family, or your community years from now. This can make what I do very frustrating, because development work takes time… a lot of time. How can I teach people who see no value in what I have to offer? And why do they see no value in it? Because they aren’t getting paid to have it presented to them. I honestly believe this type of mentality, along with per diems, will only keep a developing country at just that, a developing country.

I’m sorry if this post is negative. Overall I have had a great time here with a ton of success! I just thought I would share one of the not so good things I’ve had to deal with.