Justify huge investment in reorganisation of ISD – Oppong Nkrumah

The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has admonished staff of the Infor­mation Services Department (ISD) to justify the huge investment made into them over the last three years.

He said government over the three or so years had invested heavily into the service as part of the reorganisation agenda to enable them focus on their key functions and it would only be appropriate for the personnel to justify this investment.

“This is the only way we can continue make a case for govern­ment to push more resources to us,” he said.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah made the call at the third government Public Relations Officers (PROs) Review Summit in Accra yesterday.

The review instituted by the Ministry of Information was to help review the work of govern­ment PROs over the preceding year and to correct shortfalls where any.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said the role of PROs was very critical in the delivery of the social contract between the government and the people of Ghana.

He said while the adminis­trations may vary from time to time, the Government of Ghana remains the same and the work of Government PRO must be to help the government in its information dissemination.

Mr Nkrumah said the PROs played three key roles and these include, communicating govern­ment’s programmes and policies to all its stakeholders, provide feedback to government and act proactively to address issues that runs ahead of them by offering rapid response.

He said year on year, there had been some level of improvement in government PR and hoped it would be improved upon to enable government achieve its mandate.

The Minister noted that it was only when PROs discharge their role effectively and efficiently then the investment in them would be justified.

On his part, the Acting Direc­tor of the ISD, Mr D.D. Owu­su-Amoah expressed appreciation for the platform to review their work annually.

He said the focus of the sum­mit was to take stock of what their work entailed over the past year.

Mr Owusu-Amoah said the role of PROs to government’s agenda could not be overemphasised and the current transformation of the service could not had come at a better time than this.

He said it was gratifying that through the untiring effort of the MOI, the ISD had a new organi­sational manual approved by the head of civil service.

Mr Owusu-Amoah said the new manual was also part of the transformation agenda.

 BY CLIFF EKUFUL