Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister for Information has urged the Information Services Department to adopt modern technology to meet the current trend of information dissemination.
He said the 1939 Information Services Department (ISD) could not function effectively and efficiently in 2021 if it was not modified to meet the present drifts in disseminating government information.
He said the current media landscape required dynamism and the ISD must be retooled to bring it up to the speed to meet the challenges of this time
Mr Oppong Nkrumah, who was interacting with the staff of the Ministry of Information and ISD at a durbar, disclosed that the blueprint to transform the Department to fit for purpose in contemporary times was at the final stage of approval.
He said the transformational agenda of the Department has been broken into four phases and phase one involves the restructuring of the organisational chart and realignment of the staff to new Divisions and Sections created with the support of the Management Services Division of the Office of the Head of Civil Service.
Phase two will involve training and retraining of officers to man the new Divisions and Sections efficiently, he added.
He disclosed that phase three of the programme involves renovation and refurbishment of all the offices of the Department across the country which has already started with the Research Division, Public Relation Coordination Division, Media Division and Access to Information (RTI) Division at the Head-office.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah added that the Public Education Division, Policy Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluation, Division, Administration and Human Resource Division and Finance which have been created would soon be renovated if the government approved and released funding for the transformational agenda.
He hinted that the last phase of the programme involves procurement of the needed logistics such as modern office equipment and cinema vans that would make the Department disseminate government information through multifaceted channels – online media channels, radio and television, newspapers and cinema vans.
He announced the government was in the process of procuring 260 modern cinema vans fitted with LED to enable Regional and District Information Officers to screen government information at any time of the day.
Patience Anaadem, ISD
