Poor punctuality is such a brake on Ivory Coast's economic development that the West African country has come up with a novel way to combat tardiness: win a house if you demonstrate you can turn up on time.
Backed by President Laurent Gbagbo and devised by a local public relations firm, "Punctuality Night" kicked off at eight o'clock sharp on Saturday night, rewarding business people and civil servants for exceptional timekeeping.
Pitched with the slogan "'African time' is killing Africa, let's fight it," its organisers hope to heighten awareness of how missed appointments, meetings or even late buses cut productivity in a region where languid tardiness is the norm.
Legal adviser Narcisse Aka, winner of what the organisers hope will be an annual event, is so unusually good at being punctual that his colleagues call him "Mr White Man's Time".
"You have the impression of being an extraterrestrial because you are with people who consider that being late is quite normal," said Mr Aka, who clinched the top of the nine prizes awarded, a $60,000 villa.
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