Gina Blay and Fortune Alimi (2nd right) in a pose with the Rotarians
The Rotary Club in Ghana has entreated the citizenry to change their attitude towards punctuality and time management.
Rotary International District 9102 Governor, Sam Worentutu, is the arrowhead in the campaign for Ghanaians to be time conscious because in his view, Africans and for that matter Ghanaians, are the worst offenders when it comes to lateness to events, which he noted, affects productivity.
“It is a disease that afflicts us all; from the head of state to the cleaner,” he observed during a visit to DAILY GUIDE last week as part of efforts to promote the campaign.
That, he said, was because “A typical Ghanaian would always find excuses to want to explain himself.”
Rotarian Worentutu, Rotarians Jeffrey Afful – a nominee for the District 9102 Governor position – and David Tettey, a past Assistant Governor, were received by Chief Executive of Western Publications [publishers of DAILY GUIDE], Gina Ama Blay and Editor of the paper, Fortune Alimi.
They were there to solicit the support of the paper in the campaign against lateness.
“Because every single day of your working day, you are confronted with going to people to get your own material for your production, I don’t know how long they keep you at the gate after ringing the bell and I don’t know how long you spend after what time you have budgeted there just because something has not started well,” Rotarian Worentutu told his hosts.
The Club has six main areas of focus, one of which is the campaign for punctuality and time management to harness economic development.
He was however, uncertain how they would achieve that with people’s attitudes remaining the same.
According to him, “If the thing [event] has not started late, then the public address system doesn’t seem to be working or some chair doesn’t seem to fit into some place; something that the organizers will feel compelled to apologise before we go ahead, but most importantly, it is because the programme starts very late.”
It was for this reason the District Governor insisted, “This is something we think if we have learnt all the skills and we do not learn this skill [of keeping to time and punctuality] we might not reap the full benefits of economic development.”
Even though Worentutu believes that changing attitudes and mindset could not be an event and that it would take a process and generations to effect the needed change, he was optimistic that with time and a conscious effort, people could change.
On her part, Mrs Blay expressed profound appreciation to the leadership of Rotary Club for taking up the challenge to embark on such an important campaign.
“We are conscious of it; we talk about it; we joke about it but no one has really taken on the soldiering aspect of making sure that we get back to formation. We really need it for us to move forward as you said, on the economic front,” she said.
She also decried the fact that sometimes people go to funerals and stay there for the entire weekend, saying, “We’ve got to shake up ourselves.”
Mrs Blay promised DAILY GUIDE’s commitment to partner Rotary Club in the campaign.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu