Remember last August, when His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, had paid a surprise visit to some government offices in Dubai and discovered some of the top executives missing from duty. The summary dismissal of key personnel for not being at their desks when duty hours demanded was met with a wave of approval from the public.

The fallout of Shaikh Mohammad’s no-nonsense action swiftly spread to Saudi Arabia, where some government agency heads quickly began adopting his strategies and devising means of controlling attendance and punctuality. It has also encouraged those on the receiving end of tardy state employees to be bolder and capture such dereliction of duty on their camera-phones and post the clips on the internet, in the hope of eliciting some action from the organisation heads.

Recently, such a tactic seems to have worked when the head of a government-run health centre was summarily dismissed after a video clip was posted online, displaying the poor attendance by the centre’s officials and the throngs of patients waiting, staring at empty offices and desks. The clip that was posted by one affected patient went viral within hours after posting and quickly came to the attention of the health affairs directorate in Hafr Al Batin, which quickly formed a committee to investigate the incident.

In the past, such incidents would be quickly brushed under the carpet by bureaucrats. However, there is a new breed of Saudis today, emboldened by what they see happening in neighbouring countries and wondering why they have to lag so far behind. They are no longer hesitant to draw attention to flaws they witness and draw strength when their postings are agreeable to a large number of viewers.

After an investigation, the directorate agreed that the video clip was genuine and that the director of the health centre was at fault. He was immediately dismissed from his post and other key officials at the centre were censured. In their conclusive statement, the committee said that “all employees in the health sector should abide by the ethics of the profession and comply with the required working hours. There will be a zero-tolerance towards anyone who fails to rise to the level of his responsibilities towards patients”.

The statement was well-received by a growing number of the public who came to know of the incident, particularly after it was reported in the local media. It also raised a debate in some circles about the malady of tardiness and punctuality in the country and how to arrest the trend.

A social sciences professor at the university in Jeddah said: “It all begins with accountability. If errant heads of civil services are not held accountable for poor administrative practices by their superiors, then that is what will filter to the rest of their staff and thus a culture of irresponsibility and carelessness will be born. Once that takes root, it will take longer to destroy it and return things back to normal.”

I have to agree that lack of accountability, particularly in the civil sector over the past few decades, has indeed distorted the standard of business ethics and in the way things are run. But is lack of accountability the root of all evil when it comes to these basics?

Not necessarily so, believes Muna, a professor of Linguistics. “The issue of accountability comes later”, she argued. “Such habits are entrenched in the individual long before he or she steps into the professional world. These habits have taken hold of our culture for a variety of reasons and start at an early age. When children depend on their housemaids and nannies to move them about and get them ready for school, aren’t the children losing out on those skills of doing things on their own? The problem then can be traced to the home for it is there where good habits are formed.”

Ismail, a middle-aged banker, believes the fault lies with the schools. “Look. The children often appear late for school and yet the school lets them in. And there is not punishment. Why? In my school days, if we were late, we were either told to go home or were subjected to the headmaster’s cane, which was a very unpleasant experience. Spare the rod and spoil the child is true and happening all around us. There is no discipline and our workforce is ill-prepared through its journey into adulthood to become responsible adults.”

Tardiness is a habit, and a bad one. But just as we learn bad habits, we can also learn good ones. And the best time to learn the good ones is when we are very young. Parents must play their part because such habits generally stick to us like glue for a lifetime.

Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@talmaeena.