Communication Structures to Be Developed

The Ministry of Information in consultation with the World Bank is to develop effective communication structures in the country to serve as an interface between the government and the citizenry.

It is projected that with the completion of the project, discourse on government policies would be greatly enhanced to further strengthen democratic structures in the country.

Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister of Information and Presidential Affairs announced this when a World Bank delegation led by Mr. Paul Mitchel, Chief, Regional Operations (External Affairs) of the bank paid a courtesy call at his ministry in Accra yesterday. The group will undertake feasibility studies of the project throughout the country and also meet government officials, private sector operators and foreign NGOs.

The Minister said, "government communication is different from party propaganda", therefore the government intends to expand the scope of communication that currently exists between it and the Ghanaian people to make them better informed about government policies and for government also to know and address their problems.

To illustrate the point the minister said that though the government had been in office for about one and half years it has not be able to recover the full value of petroleum because it has failed to charge consumers economic rates. Again he said due to poor managerial oversight at TOR the company ran into a loss of 3.5 trillion cedis and not 2.4 trillion cedis as the public has been made to believe.

Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey stated that if this communication system is constructed it would create the required free flow of information which is an imperative for consolidating democratic values.

He said his ministry would create websites for government policy positions so that Ghanaians outside the country would be updated on what the government is doing, adding further that on the internet there will be about 5,000 contact addresses of a variety of public figures for people to contact and dialogue with.

On the question of how to execute the project, the Minister said his sector would work closely with the Ministry of Local Government at all levels to gather and disseminate information.

He said the culture of reading is a good habit and urged civil society groups such as churches to assist in the construction of libraries announcing that those badly resourced and operating in dilapidated structures would be closed down and new ones built.

The Minister was unhappy about the fact though his ministry needs about 85 mobile communication vans for information dissemination it has only 55 of which only 24 are on the field.