Mayor of Accra signs punctuality pledge with Punctuality Ghana

Mr Mohammed Adjei Sowah, the Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), on Monday, signed a pledge of punctuality with Punctuality Ghana Foundation, as a way of assuring his commitment to timekeeping and discipline at workplaces.

He said even though he had already publicly stated his position on the matter of lateness and discipline at work, he thought it necessary to reiterate that stand with the signing of the pledge.

Speaking at the signing session at the Metropolitan’s conference room in Accra, Mr Sowah said, the move, by Punctuality Ghana of getting endorsements from citizenry of his calibre, to pledge to be punctual in their endeavours, was a laudable one.

He said it was, however, necessary to get the middle class in the Ghanaian society to sign up for the punctuality campaign, as they were the working class and, the ones capable of making effective change in that aspect.

He noted that the move by Punctuality Ghana came as no surprise, as the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, has on numerous occasions spelt the need for Ghana’s working force to adopt the habit of punctuality.

“It is something that I have to support because, His Excellency the President in his sessional address last year, indicated that he is in a hurry to deliver on his targets, and he wanted all of us (government appointees) to be on time. I believe he was not referring to only us political leaders, but the nation as a whole,” he said.

Mr Sowah said he refuses to buy into the idea that the Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT) meant ‘Ghana Man Time’ in the country’s culture, and that there was the need for that notion to be changed among Ghanaians especially, the working class.

The AMA boss said having a stakeholder in Punctuality Ghana would emphasise the efforts of the assembly in instilling discipline and punctuality into its people.

He said being punctual required discipline, so people would have to be disciplined to be able to stay punctual, adding; “we cannot tolerate indiscipline and develop our nation at the same time.”

Also speaking at the signing session, Miss Naa Meryeh Quaynor-Mettle, the Project Co-ordinator for Punctuality Ghana Foundation, said the visit to the Mayor of Accra, was the eighth endorsement phase of Punctuality Ghana’s ongoing public education campaign on punctuality since June last year.

She said as a Civil Society Organisation, Punctuality Ghana’s mission is to facilitate Ghana becoming the most efficient African nation in the world, and to achieve that, their horizon must spread beyond going to work at 0800 hours and closing at 1700 hours.

Miss Quaynor-Mettle said it was the mandate of her outfit to measure punctuality in terms of productivity, growth, development, increasing government revenue, minimising corruption, and making Ghana attractive for foreign investment.

She said “We (Punctuality Ghana) consider the planning of the city and its management, road traffic regulation, and productivity as being critical to punctuality.”