Is it worth
working after retirement?
By Dr. Rabindra K. Shakya
“The government decisions
relating to appointment, promotion and transfer of the civil servants are the biggest
destabilizing factor in the Nepalese bureaucracy. It is a matter of anybody's guess that
why each successive government is interested to bring piecemeal changes in the established
rules and regulations of the civil service, thus affecting practice in vogue for
appointment, promotion, and transfer of the civil servants" says Dr Rabindra K.
Shakya, a seasoned bureaucrat-economic planner sharing his experiences about his
bureaucratic career and his retired life.
1. Whether one likes it or not, retirement
in life from work at a certain point of time is as certain as death unless the latter
takes place beforehand. Unlike those who are self-employed, those who work for public
offices are subject to retirement much earlier than the former. For the former, the
retirement is a matter of choice, as long as they are physically able to work. While for
the latter, retirement is defined by rules and regulations governing his terms of
services. I often ran into people who were retired from the public offices not because of
their physical inability but because of the fact that their tenures are dictated by the
rules of the game. It is also true that some people seek voluntary retirement long before
they are legally required to take it. For this group of people, the deciding factor has
most often been the opportunity cost of employment for taking voluntary retirement.
2. In my case, I retired from His
Majesty’s Government Services as Secretary, in April 1999, and was later appointed
Senior Economic Adviser to Ministry of Finance in 2001. The latter appointment was based
on a two-year contract. There were basic differences in works of these positions. The
former is more a managerial responsibility and much less technical while the latter was
more a professional and technical responsibility and much less administrative.
3. My retirement from Nepal’s Civil
Service was at the age of 52 - six years earlier than the formal retirement age of 58
according to the Civil Service Regulations. My retirement did not come to me as a
surprise; it was expected since the prevailing civil service regulation stipulates
the Secretary or Special class position as a tenure position for a term of 5 years.
And non-extendable. I, however, continued to serve in that position for the total of seven
years including as Acting Member-Secretary at the National Planning Commission.
4. Soon after my retirement, I was prepared
to start a new beginning in my career. I was not lacking at all in my enthusiasm and zeal,
and my desire to work was as deep and intense as ever. I was poised to take on newer and
more challenging assignments and responsibilities although in different capacities.
Fortunately, I was able to get several such assignments subsequently where my academic
background and work experiences served me par excellence.
5. Life after the first retirement was
quite exciting. The very realization that I now have all the time the world has provided
me with a lot of excitement. I now could spend my time the way I chose: visiting places of
interest, meeting friends and relatives, participating in cultural, social and other
events of professional interests, serving in non-governmental organizations, and above all
reading books and occasionally doing creative works in areas of my interest.
6. In fact, even before my retirement,
several consultancy assignments were offered to me in my areas of interest and
professional expertise in an anticipation of my impending retirement. But it was only
after my retirement that I chose to work as the free-lance consultant without having
joined any institution or organization.
7. I was choosy in selecting areas of
consultancy assignments. Several factors went into play that guide me to make a decision
on whether or not to accept a given assignment. These were the consideration of the
members of the Study Team, the area and scope of the work involved, the period of work,
the nature of academic background and areas of expertise and of course, the amount of
compensation that is forthcoming.
8. My full-scale involvement in the works
of the consultancy was satisfying professionally. I really worked hard, for I enjoyed what
I did: it also helped me to ease my financial necessity; it gave me further opportunity to
use my knowledge and experiences, which I had gathered out of hard labor for decades in
the past. The most important change was the way I looked at the issues. As a government
employee, the search for an answer to an issue is often to be found within the context of
an established practice, rules and regulations and within the frame work of approved
policies and priorities, contrary to the practice of an investigation in an independent
and impartial manner by a freelancer.
9. I am still deeply committed to works, as
I was. After the completion of my Master’s degree in economics, I got a job at the
Central Bureau of Statistics as a temporary National Accounts Officer and after a year as
Section Officer of Nepal Administrative Service. My involvement with the Central Bureau of
Statistics gave me the first taste of working with the government within the framework of
government policies, rules and regulations and priorities. It also gave me an exposure to
the style of working in the government agencies and the complexity of the work that I was
involved with.
10. I was totally devoted to my work. Work
is something that seemed to me natural and normal to do. Hence, I was always eager to do
jobs suitable to my academic background and experiences. The latest job as the Senior
Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance, equivalent to the rank of Assistant Minister,
was a two-year job and is non-elective and non-civil service position. This was an
opportunity, which I enjoyed, and a departure from the tradition in which I was brought up
as a civil servant. A civil servant usually does not enjoy the privileges of choosing the
positions or the agencies he or she is supposed to work. The nature and the place of work
are handed down to him or her by the executive decision of the government in which he or
she rarely has a role to play. The administrative decision of the government relating to
appointment, promotion and transfer of civil servants was sometimes very strange and could
be one which could be rarely justified on grounds of any logic or practice either in
Nepal or in similar other countries. Such government decisions relating to appointment,
promotion and transfer of the civil servants are the biggest destabilizing factor in the
Nepalese bureaucracy. It is a matter of anybody's guess that why each successive
government is interested to bring piecemeal changes in the established rules and
regulations of the civil service, thus affecting practice in vogue for appointment,
promotion, and transfer of the civil servants. The independent Public Service
Commission spends a lot of money, energy and resources by taking competitive
examinations and interviews to identify the talents and to recommend them to right
positions. But the net result of the PSC effort goes in vain zero when appointments,
promotions and transfers are done in a manner in which the right persons are put in wrong
posts. This has been found to be a matter of general rule rather than an exception. In
addition, the Civil Service Act and Regulations have been amended so often that these have
made it difficult to examine the impact of governance reform on the efficiency
of Nepal's bureaucracy.
11. I always have a feeling that it is good
to work even after retirement. This is because it helps earn income, get additional
benefit of some kind such as meeting with newer, younger and even older blood involved in
areas of interest and would help continuing career satisfaction- continuing to do well or
even better at what one has been doing for sometime or to learn something new and to gain
some satisfaction. There are other reasons also behind the motive to get always involved
in the work. One gets a bigger satisfaction by being in the workplace or being involved in
some work. Because, this is where in the Nepalese society, one is valued and measured. In
Nepalese society, essentially two things - the position/power and the wealth, define a
person. When one has both, he/she is among those who are received in a high social esteem.
The Nepalese society has thus devalued much of ethics and values, considered once as the
most important virtue of the society. This is because it seldom matters how one reached to
the position of power or how one accumulated wealth. This largely explains how and why the
Nepalese society has largely become so dysfunctional, so corrupt and so materialistic.
12. One of the most painful aspects of
Nepal’s retired people’s life is that one has to continue to struggle to
maintain his or her identity in society and has to continuously ask oneself how he/she can
fit in it. When one finds that the institution where one has spent the best part of life
often ignores him/her, then he/she begins to ask himself/herself whether or not that
his/her contribution to that organization was worth the life that he/she had spent .
Appreciating somebody’s past contribution to the growth of the institution and the
services that he/she had provided as an active member of that institution is something
that is to a greater measure an alien culture of the Nepalese bureaucracy. In addition,
when the community of which he/she had been a part for so long forgets him/her, then the
search for a newer identity under the situation becomes quite awkward. In this
search for new identity, some of my colleagues who retired from senior positions in
Nepalese civil service ended up being consultants, journalists, social workers, etc. In
this regard, those with technical backgrounds seemed to have fared better as compared to
those with liberal arts and humanities background in matters of getting gainful employment
opportunities in non-government sector.
13. I have a desire, which I have cherished
all these years since my retirement. The desire is to work and to remain busy in whatever
way I can. I enjoy the work that I have been doing. This has been good for my health
- mental and physical and would like to continue right up to the very last gasp. Life with
too much of leisure is not at all contributory, although to some measure, it is helpful.
Leisure is inimical to productive life. And by productive I mean going to work –
getting a paycheck, producing output and contributing directly or indirectly to the
country's national wealth.
14. Having said this, I do not want to
discourage those who value leisure more than work. There are people who want to retire
rather than work. Again, there are also people who say that “I am retired but not
tired of work’. Whichever way one wishes to go, the choices are wide open.
Opportunities are plenty. Making right choices are sometimes difficult, nonetheless
these are important decisions, which lead to success in life. Choices very often have an
economic dimension, no matter what decisions we make whether at the macro level or at the
personal level.
15. But because I am able to keep working
and to compete in the market place, I always find myself under pressure to upgrade myself.
A sense of competition is not bad as Adam Smith, the Father of Modern Economic Science
taught us long back. My work helps me truly measure who I am by putting myself out there
everyday – in competition with a lot of people who are younger than I am. This can be
a real sense of satisfaction – to form a team or be a member of team as an older but
a wiser person.
(The author is former Senior Economic
Adviser to the Ministry of Finance and a former Secretary to His Majesty's Government,
Nepal) |
