Dr. Nana Ato Arthur
The Head of the Local Government Service (LGS) has taken exception to the attitude of lateness of reporting to work by, as he put it, majority of staff of MMDAs across the country.
Dr. Nana Ato Arthur in his reaction about the trend added that it was as if the defaulters were under no rules or authority.
“The attitude of most of the staff is impacting negatively upon the performance of the assemblies,” he said, adding that “the earliest time some of the staff report to work was 9:00am or 10:00am and again leave their offices earlier than the official closing time.”
Dr. Ato Arthur, who is currently on a working visit to the Ashanti Region to assess the performance contract signed by the assemblies in 2020, disclosed with disappointment that some of the staff always lied about the time they report to work in the attendance book.
“For instance someone who reports to work at 9:15am in trying to cover up, will go into the attendance book and record that he/she reported to work at 8:01am. Sometimes others who report to work at 9:30am will look at the time of the last attendant and also follow the sequence. So if the last person records 8:01am then the rest will record from 8:02am, 8:03am, 8:04am, 8:05am and that order,” he said.
He said word had reached him that most of the senior staffers travel outside their duty stations over the weekend and return to work on Monday around midday.
Dr. Ato Arthur expressed dismay about the trend and cautioned against using distance as a pretext to report to work late.
A biometric clocking system was introduced earlier as a means of stopping the lateness anomaly, but this had to be replaced by the attendance book following the outbreak of COVID-19.
With the flexible working hours introduced as a result of the pandemic, he said there was no justification for the poor attitude to timing at the MMDAs.
“Government still pays their salaries and allowances in full even though they work for 15 days or less in a month,” he bemoaned.
He also condemned the bad attitude of majority of the staff who sit in their offices with earphones in their ears, making needless video and phone calls, chatting on Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram even when there are official duties to perform.
Dr. Ato Arthur blamed the situation on bad leadership at some of the assemblies, saying, “if you are a good DCE or Coordinating Director, you will never allow your staff to report late for work.”
By A.R. Gomda