MDCEs should collaborate with government Information Officers
Mr Mohammed Ahmed Baba Jamal, Deputy Minister of information, on Wednesday urged Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs) to collaborate with Information Officers to propagate government’s information and gather public reactions.
He also charged the Information Officers to put away their political interest and ideologies and concentrate on their core business as civil servants and build cordial relationship with the MDCEs on the basis of trust and loyalty.
Mr Baba Jamal was interacting with the Municipal and District Chief Executives and staff of the Information Service Department (ISD) from the Eastern Region in Koforidua as part of his tour of all the ten regions of the country.
He urged the Information Officers to ensure that government policies and programmes are well explained to the people.
Mr Baba Jamal challenged the staff of ISD to see themselves as agents of disseminating government information devoid of political influence and that any officer who was not ready to collaborate with his or her MDCE should resign from the work.
He said the ministry was coming out with a project aimed at branding Ghana and therefore charged ISD staff to collaborate with the municipal and district assemblies to achieve that objective.
Mr Baba Jamal urged the information officers to consider themselves as an integral part of the district assemblies and to assist the MDCEs to ensure that information from the various assemblies got to the rural areas.
He also charged the MDCEs to help the information officers by way of providing them with the necessary logistics to enable them operate effectively.
The Eastern Regional Minister, Dr Kwasi Akyem Apea-Kubi, on his part said the Regional Coordinating Council would support the district information officers to carry out their duties effectively in order to achieve the aim of branding Ghana project.
He said the ISD served as the major tool for the districts to propagate government information to the people, especially rural dwellers.
The Eastern Regional Director of Information Services Department, Mr Akwasi Amankwah, said his outfit lacked logistics which were hampering their work.
He said staffing position was also another challenge confronting them in the region and that not every district at the moment had an information officer.
Mr Amankwah said at the moment there were vacancies at Kwahu North, Kwahu East, Kwahu West and Atiwa districts which needed to be filled to facilitate the flow of information in those areas.
Source: GNA