Punctuality Ghana Public Education Campaign Project Given Open Endorsement

By G.D. Zaney And Evans Danso

A public education campaign project dubbed: 'The Punctuality Ghana Public Education Project' which aims to promote punctuality and effective time management in Ghana and to harness their potentials for rapid socio-economic development, was, yesterday, given an open endorsement.

Under the project, which is being implemented by Wise Water Foundation (WWF), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) founded and incorporated in Ghana in 2008, a number of programmes will be rolled out in promoting punctuality.

These programmes will include the installation of clocks in public places, going on walks and floats, organization of public fora, workshops and conferences, and the display of punctuality signages in offices and public places.

The others are the mounting of mobile human signages at roundabouts and major streets, and unannounced visits to workplaces, schools, churches and other public events.

Speaking at the endorsement ceremony in Accra, yesterday, the Minister for Information, Mr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, noted that punctuality and time management had an important role to play in national development.

Mr Abdul-Hamid said time consciousness was a development model and a fundamental requirement for national development, adding that a people could become either productive or unproductive, based on their choices of time management and cited the scriptures--the Bible and the Quran-- as having linked productivity to time management or consciousness.

He noted that the change of name from the Ministry of Information to the Ministry of Information and National Orientation during the Kufuor administration was part of that agenda to re-orient Ghanaians to see the need to embrace positive attitudes, including time consciousness.

He, therefore, pledged support for the Punctuality Ghana Public Education Campaign Project and committed his Deputy Ministers to ensuring the success of the campaign.

He also urged the youth to grow in the culture of punctuality and called on all Ghanaians to pledge commitment to punctuality by recognizing the difference between work and leisure.

A Deputy Information Minister, Nana Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, in a statement, reiterated the need to promote punctuality as a national development effort, adding that time lost was irreplaceable.

For his part, Mr Perry Okudzeto, also a Deputy Information Minister, condemned the culture of poor time management practices among public sector workers and urged them to turn a new leaf.

In a welcome address, Mr Emmanuel Amarquaye, a punctuality crusader and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of WWF, said the current campaign was a response to President Akufo-Addo's call to punctuality.

Mr Amarquaye noted that the nation's prosperity was locked up in long bureaucracies that consumed time and money.

He said punctuality was linked to hard and honest work, and urged all Ghanaians to respond to the President's call by joining the campaign and become disciples of punctuality.

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