Petty Stealing Comment Was 'Unfair' - Kwesi Pratt to Prez Akufo Addo

By Alex Ohene

"Some of these workers have wives, children and so on; if these workers in the course of their work have to serve their bosses with tea biscuits and so on and they partake in it, they are not criminals, they are not thieves and they cannot be responsible for the current state of the economy... " says the managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

Kwesi Pratt was reacting to President Akufo Addo's assertion that workers need to change their attitude if "we are going to make the changes we all want"

President Akufo Addo during May Day celebration this year said "we have no respect for the hours set aside for work... we pray, we eat, we visit during working hours. We spend hours chatting on the telephone when customers are waiting to be served, thereby increasing our labour costs. We take a week off for every funeral. And then we wonder why we are not competitive. There is the petty stealing of paper, envelopes, tea, milk and other equipment. There is the reckless use of office vehicles. Employees show no inclination to protecting the things that are in the offices and factories and extreme reluctance to stand up for what we know to be right in our workplaces in general,"

Contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold's Alhaji and Alhaji, Kwesi Pratt said it is 'unfair' for workers to be described as thieves or corrupt when they are only finding 'ways to survive'

"I do not see how you can call ordinary workers who find ingenious ways of extracting a little from those they do business with; I do not see how we can call these workers corrupt. These are workers who have been reduced to begger status and have to find ways of survival... they are only begging for alms to survive and to blame them for their condition or to say that their condition is responsible for the decay in society, I think it is most unfair" he added.

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