Time is important to all of us, not only to Europe, but also to Africa.
In fact, time is more important to Africa because we have to accelerate and speed up to develop the continent.
Ghana is officially a G.M.T. country (Greenwich Mean Time), however the more popular translation in Ghana became Ghana Maybe Time. We don’t think the logic behind the so-called joke needs to be explained.
However, it is a serious problem in Ghana.
Have you ever tried to calculate how much of other people’s time you waste, or how much time they waste of your precious time, or how much time we waste of our government’s time, Ghana’s time and thus time to develop our country Ghana because of our behaviour?
Do you realiSe that an average person in Europe and North America and Africa works 25 years of his or her life?
Do you realiSe that an average person in Europe and North America and Africa sleeps 21 years of his or her life?
Do you ever realiSe that an average person in Europe and North America is waiting for something or somebody for 2-3 years or 2.4 % of his life?
Do you know that it is estimated that an average African person waits for something or somebody for up to 6-7 years or 10.3 % of his life, because also his/her average age is already lower than the others?
Just imagine this, with a population in Africa with 1,070 million, we are wasting 107 million productive man years annually, man years that could have been used to improve Africa and Ghana.
G.O.T. stands for Ghana On Time!
The G.O.T. initiative is taken by the Ghana Netherlands Chamber of Commerce and Culture. With the G.O.T. Initiative Ghanecc, and hopefully others to follow, is trying to create awareness of the importance to be on time or at least in time.
Among other initiatives the G.O.T. initiative will create and put up for sale pins for your suit to recognise other people who respect time, so you will also understand that you have to be in time when having an appointment with such a person.
The G.O.T. Initiative will annually award public figures in Ghana who are well known to respect time when making appointments, such people are; politicians, public servants, religious leaders, leaders of business community and famous artists.
The G.O.T. Initiative will put up a clock at Tetteh Quarshie Square to create awareness of being on time in Ghana.
The G.O.T. Initiative will allow anybody in Ghana who wishes to communicate their culture of being/starting on time, to use their G.O.T. logo, such as shows and TV programs, conferences, courses, opening hours, etc.
Example: Ghana Club 100 - all correspondence with small G.O.T. logo next to their announcements.
The G.O.T. Initiative will allow us to actively support the press and other organizations to expose anybody who uses the G.O.T. Logo by mentioning how much late they started while “flashing” the G.O.T. Logo.
The G.O.T. Initiative will publish rules of engagement in case a dedicated GOT follower has no other choice than being late, for example:
Contact your counterpart as soon as you can know that you will be late No lies or excuses when you are or will be late
Give an exact location of where you are and an estimated arrival time, so your counterpart can undertake some other things without wasting his/her time. Targeted groups:
Children: educate the importance of being on time, they will enjoy for life
Business: business people, other business people lose hours by waiting
Laborers: Ghana loses a large amount of productive hours
Government: Make appointments and be there, with a finished job, communicate with your citizens when not finished
Conferences: let your keynote speaker or guest of honor set the pace to be in time
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