The media landscape in Ghana is changing day in and day out and that has made disseminating of government information a complex issue but the Information Services Department (ISD) remains committed to weathering the storm to get Ghanaians both home and abroad informed of government policies, programmes and projects to ensure participatory development.
To this end, the Department has developed a transformational programme to reposition it to deliver relevant government information to Ghanaians.
The Acting Chief Information Officer, Mr David Owusui-Amoah, who said this at a retreat at Aburi added that the purpose of the transformational agenda was to retool the Department and develop the professional competence of the staff to make the Department perform efficiently and effectively as a Public Relations outfit of the government.
He said the Department intended to purchase state of art communication equipment to make it deliver timeous information to the public and collect feedback to inform policy evaluation.
He said the government had pledged to buy mobile cinema vans for all the 260 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to facilitate the dissemination of information to every nook and cranny of the country.
He said as part of the transformational agenda, the Research Section of the Department has been retooled with state of art communication gadgets and all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Information Officers have been given smartphones with installed software that allows data collection for research on government policies.
He added that the Public Relations Division of the Department has also been given a facelift to collate a readily report on the Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), the Department PROs are serving for the attention of the sector minister.
The newsroom has been renovated to enable staff at the Editorial Section to send information on government activities of the various MDAs to the public, he said
On the development of the professional competence of the staff, he said, management would develop the skill mix of the staff to give out their best.
He hinted that staff of the Editorial Section are currently on internship programme of the State media organizations to enable them to have practical hands-on training of those media houses.
Harriet D. Ateko, ISD
