Let’s make punctuality meaningful in our lives – Osafo Maafo

The Senior Minister, Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has asked Ghanaian workers to make punctuality a cherished value and a tool for national development.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo says, “I wish to emphasize that with a strong attitudinal change among public and civil servants towards Punctuality, Ghana will be far ahead in eliminating all forms of poor attitude to work, poor public service delivery, poor coordination among Ministries, etc. that impede the progress of development of our country.”

Mr. Osafo-Maafo made this known on at the Punctuality Public Education Awareness Campaign by the Punctuality Ghana Foundation at the Conference Room of the Office of the Senior Minister.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo indicated that it was his belief that “when punctuality and attitudinal change to work in the public sector improves, it will eventually lead to the realization of the vision on the Ghana Beyond Aid policy.”

The Senior Minister informed that a number of reforms were taking place in the public sector which included performance-based system which will be tied to rewarding hardworking public and civil servants, reforms in human resource management system, public sector wages and salaries, public financial management system, reforms in the educational system, and reforms in the health system, and the government was incorporating punctuality as a key component towards nation building.

He called on public and civil servants to change their attitude by being punctual to work at all times and utilize the time productively in order to deliver on the services to the citizens and the private sector.

“One can be smart, capable and competent, but if one is habitually late, be it to work or on deadlines, one runs the risk of undermining ones professional reputation,” the Senior Minister added.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo, who was the 24th public personality to endorse the campaign, informed that the punctuality campaign found a place under two programmes in his office which were the National Public Sector Reform Strategy (NPSRS) 2018 to 2023 and the Ghana Beyond Aid Charter and Strategy document.

“These two programmes generally deal with the mindset and attitudinal change of people including public and civil servants,” he said.

The Senior Minister noted that “This largely means that punctuality to work, committing ourselves to continuous productivity, increasing performance and producing results will certainly lead us into realizing the vision in the Ghana Beyond Aid and achieve results from the implementation of the NPSRS.”

“To make an impact with pillar two, which states that “A Capable and Disciplined Workforce which seeks to build on values of impartiality, integrity and client-centeredness needs to be institutionalized across the public sector.

it clearly calls for the empowerment of public sector leadership to better engage and support the political leadership to implement national development plans, and enforce implementation of the public sector Code of Ethics and Conduct which includes Punctuality and Attitudes to work, “he said.

According to him, “This will institute discipline, transparency, accountability and nationalism in all facets of the public sector activities and responsibilities,” he said.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo said one of the activities to be implemented under the pillar two primarily looked at conducting capacity assessment of the public sector to identify skills and knowledge gaps in the quality and timely delivery of services to citizens and the private sector.

The Lead Campaigner of the Foundation, Mr Emmanuel Amarquaye, in a remark, said the greatest headache that Governments of Ghana had faced over the years was the need to raise revenue, “and a lot of revenue could be generated if people could deliver on time.”

He observed that money generated from government institutions were low because people were not delivering on time and those monies went into individual pockets, and therefore corruption could be curbed with government revenue going into government coffers if public officials were punctual at work.