If we want to showcase an investable SA, better timekeeping is essential
They say time is money, and that is the case in both the private and public sectors. Doctors and dentists are among the worst offenders, and airlines are also notorious for unplanned delays, though some are far worse than others.
In the business world, try getting a one-on-one chat with the CEO and more often than not the rottweiler PA will send you packing with a provisional date in 2025.
And of course ordinary motorists must feel honoured when they are shoved to the side of the road by armed motorbike-wielding police thugs leading a blue light convoy, whisking an overburdened and astronomically important minister or mayor to his or her next official unveiling of a new water tap.
When it comes to staging events, though, it seems that in SA wasting time is the norm. And the adage about a fish rotting from the head down may have some merit when it comes to time-wasting at senior government level.
It beggars belief that President Cyril Ramaphosa consistently manages to begin his televised addresses to the nation late, very late or ridiculously late. This is despite promises he made on succeeding his tardy predecessor that punctuality would be observed.
We saw the sloth at the recent Brics summit, when some meetings kicked off as much as an hour late. Chinese leader Xi Jinping even went so far as to miss a couple of keynote addresses early on. This set the tone for the whole event, which never managed to shake off the image of a talkfest.
More often than not ministers abandoned their manners to attend more pressing engagements. Like breakfast or an unscheduled, lastminute meeting with someone considered far more important than the hundreds of heel-kicking delegates.
Some might say this is Africa, and we should just accept the concept of African time. But these conferences are not inward-looking events — they are meant to showcase a modern and investable SA to the world. Besides, there is nothing African about ill manners.
The world is unlikely to be impressed with a bunch of preening politicians who can’t be bothered to glance at their suspiciously expensive wristwatches. Minister of (occasional) electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa wears a fancy Patek Philippe Nautilus watch reportedly valued at about R4m, if it’s real.
We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the Brics summit session when the assembled delegates were instructed — well past the official opening time — to stand to greet Ramaphosa, but were then instructed to sit down again as he was running late. But perhaps “running” wasn’t the right word. He appeared to be in no rush.
Big events — such as the president’s investment conferences, African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) gettogethers and the Brics gatherings of much-admired world leaders and Vladimir Putin — attract the cream of the crop, the heads of global corporations, influential diplomats and — dare we suggest — influential journalists.
Combine the annual earning power of these rooms full of movers and shakers, divide it by the days in a year and then the hours in a day, and you still have many times the annual wage of many South Africans. If with this poor timekeeping you waste just one hour of the valuable time of every one of the attendees, you are squandering a fortune.
Time waits for no man, but it seems it must wait for those self-important public servants. There is also the message that is being sent far and wide: that we can’t turn up on time and are incapable of organising events in a way that is respectful to our guests.
Why then should the snubbed CEOs, those who control the Agoa purse or the Brics bank, make any special effort to squander any more cash on a country whose politicians are so thoughtless, arrogant and plain rude?
One of us used to have a rule that if an event started more than 15 minutes late he would just leave — unless it was so important that he had to stay, or risk his job by failing to cover the event. It was quite liberating when applied, and there was frequent scope for its application, but it seemed to have no effect on the organisers of subsequent events.
This strategy would only really work if all attendees were to march out in unison. The problem is that, unlike the organisers and keynote speakers, most delegates are too well mannered for this to happen.
One might expect that those responsible for events that start so late might offer some sort of apology, but this is rarely the case. A recent media session we attended started 50 minutes late. After about 30 minutes we were told — with no apology — that the panel was just waiting for a few more people to join the gathering. As if punctuality was a punishable offence.
This is the problem; by indulging latecomers event organisers are tacitly condoning their behaviour. If these events started on time regardless of how many people were already in attendance, the latecomers would quickly get the message not to be late in future.
Why show such contemptuous discourtesy to those who are prompt, or even early? Why should we have to wait for the rude, the tardy, the disorganised, the thoughtless? The inevitable consequence of this late start, as is so often the case, is that the event as a whole runs late, compounding the time needed to follow what was already an over-long session.
If a late start can’t be accompanied by a late finish, agendas are squeezed, items are dropped, and the quality and scope of the discussion are sacrificed on the altar of tardiness. Because the star attraction, the Minister for Time Wasting & Late Attendance, must leave on time so he or she can be a little less late for their next sold-out appearance. Let the motorbike escort roll, machine guns at the ready.
There is a further problem that arises when there is no consequence for late starts. The prompt will become less prompt at the next gathering, almost no-one will bother to arrive for the scheduled start, and there will be a downward spiral of delayed openings.
Maybe it is time to start a movement among the punctual, starting with slow hand claps for ministers who can’t be bothered to arrive on time. The danger is that they might mistake this for genuine applause and conclude that there is support for their slovenly contempt for punctuality.
We may need a starting gun instead. One that looks real enough to give any keynote speaker who wanders on stage more than a few minutes late enough of a fright for them to change their ways.
SOME MIGHT SAY THIS IS AFRICA, AND WE SHOULD ACCEPT THE CONCEPT OF AFRICAN TIME