Posted on 10/08/2007 9:24:34 PM PDT by blam
'Mr White Man's Time' wins punctuality prize
By Mike Pflanz, West Africa Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:30am BST 09/10/2007
Narcisse Aka won a £30,000 villa
A competition to reward punctuality in a region notorious for lateness has been won by a legal adviser known as "Mr White Man's Time".
Narcisse Aka, 40, was picked as the most consistently punctual person in Ivory Coast, a country with the chronic "sociological problem" of missed appointments and delays.
Appointment times are regarded as purely advisory in many of the humid coastal regions of West Africa.
This is damaging productivity, said the organisers of the contest, backed by President Laurent Gbagbo and with the slogan: "African time is killing Africa, let's fight it."
"I was not surprised to be nominated because I am always harassing my colleagues to be punctual," said Mr Aka, 40. "They call me Mr White Man's Time. But for me it is purely a mark of respect to other people to be punctual. Time is money and we know that it must be costing us if we are late."
Mr Aka, who is married with three children, walked away from Saturday night's competition with the top prize of a £30,000 villa. Eight other contestants won cash awards.
"It seems strange to me that there is all this attention because I do not have the feeling that I have done something so extraordinary," he added.
Competition judges short-listed 30 people, who had been nominated by friends and colleagues, and carried out spot-checks.
Jean Baptiste Koffi, the director of the public relations firm that organised the contest, said there was a sociological problem of lateness, not just in Ivory Coast but in the whole region, that cost the economy heavily in missed appointments and delayed meetings.
“Appointment times are regarded as purely advisory in many of the humid coastal regions of West Africa.”
Well, if this is typical in Africa, they need to stop blaming “Mr. White Man” for any of their failures. As much as we might not always like it, getting organized and doing things on time are necessary for a successful economy and nation.
Bunch of racists. Don’t they know they are victims and should be blaming somebody else?
http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20050103f
If only guys like this were the norm, then maybe Africa and much of the rest of the World would be much better off both economically and socially. But the liberal elites prefer ridiculing him instead, so that they can keep the masses pliable and dependent on them.
Interesting, thanks.
Your parallel still managed to blame Caucasians, though.
Just change the colors, move it to the USA, and listen to the roars and howls.
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