Every Ghanaian, no matter where he or she lives, who needs to contact the Ministries of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) and the Ministry of Tourism will have no option than to travel to the Ministry or use the mobile number of any of the staff of the Ministry if the person is lucky to know any. This is because for close to six months, the Ministry's land lines have been down.The situation has compelled some key staff in the two Ministries to be using their private cellular phone in making official calls at their own expense, Head of Public Affairs at MEST, Florence Boakye- Badoe, confirmed in an interview with Public Agenda in Accra last Tuesday.

She, however, noted that members of staff are able to communicate with one another within the Ministry through the intercom. Also, access to the Internet has not been affected.

She said both ministries have reported the disruptions to Vodafone but the problem is yet to be fixed.

Ms Boakye- Badoe said: "We have spoken to Ghana Telecom [Vodafone], the agency in charge. They told us the problem is with the underground cables because there is construction work going on there, so they will want to look out for the contractor and see how they can come together so that when they repair them they will not dig again and damage it."

"So we are waiting for them because we cannot do anything unless they do everything right. Meanwhile we are working with our cell phones; at least that's the best thing we do for now."

Several calls by Public Agenda to the Vodafone Head Office on Wednesday to inquire what steps the organization is taking to fix the problem proved counterproductive as no official was ready to provide answers.

isappointingly, help lines (106, 100) advertised by Vodafone is not in operation; (200200) rings but no one response while (238060 and 228000) was engage for almost four hours between the hours of 10:00 am to about 3:00pm.

Meanwhile, MEST has not found it necessary to inform the public about the situation and to make alternative arrangements to address the communication challenge which has arisen as a result of the six-month old disruption to its telephone network, limiting its ability to communicate with its external publics.

The situation has, no doubt, compromised productivity at the Ministry and its persistence, without an immediate remedial measure will have dire consequences for the execution of the Ministry's mandate.