According to the President of the Ghana Timber Millers Or­ganisation (GTMO), Ghanaians, particularly the working class, must prioritise time management as a vital index for production.

“For far too long we have been toying with time management in our workplaces and treated it as if it isn’t a critical factor for produc­tion,” he said during an engage­ment with journalists yesterday.

Rev. Sarpong emphasised that unless the government enforces effective time management, espe­cially in the public sector, produc­tivity will continue to suffer.

“Time is of the essence in plan­ning and, indeed, every human endeavour, but what do we see? As workers we go to work late, close before the scheduled time, or leave as and when we like.

In some cases, a significant amount of time is spent by offi­cials, both public and private, at­tending conferences, workshops, and meetings, to the detriment of productivity,” he stated.

Although conferences, work­shops, and meetings are intended to enhance productivity, they should be planned in a way that they do not unduly interfere with productivity.

Rev. Sarpong, also a philanthro­pist and Founder cum President of Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies (FRWB), an environmen­tal non-governmental organisa­tion, expressed unhappiness that almost all key public and private business establishments and offices in the country have their head offices located in the capital, Accra, making regular trips from other parts of the country to the capital for business transactions virtually inevitable.

The industrialist cited numer­ous instances of businessmen, public officials, and others having to travel long distances to Accra to transact business only to be told that they could not be attended to due to the simple excuse that management or appropriate officials were either attending conferences, work­shops, or meetings.