Some hours after taking over the mantle of leadership from Idriss Deby of Chad, the new African Union (AU) chairman, who is also the president of Guinea, Alpha Conde, has scolded leaders who come late for meetings or leave early.

According to Ceoafrica, in his address at the closing ceremony of the annual AU summit in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, Conde, 78, said that “From now on we are going to start on time. If we say 10:00am then we must start at 10:00am.

“How can we explain that when we have meetings with other countries, like Japan, China or India, we are there on time, what about ours?

“And why is it that when we go to these meetings we stay until the end but when we come from afar to Addis Ababa, we leave right after the opening ceremony?"

It was learnt that Conde's remarks received a big applause - from lower level representatives as many heads of state had already left the Chinese-built AU headquarters.

He also lamented about the AU's failure to keep up with technology by saying, “How can you imagine that in an era of new technology we are still working with microphones from the sixties? How can we explain that the internet connection in our headquarters is very slow when next door, at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the internet works better?"

He became Guinea's president in 2010 in the first democratic election in the West African nation since independence from France in 1958.