The Acting Director of the Information Services Department (ISD), Mrs. Elizabeth Efua Essel has commended staff of the ISD in the Upper East Region for putting their best efforts forward in the discharge of the ISD’s mandate. This includes but not limited to, offering of Public Relations services to District and Municipal Assemblies in the region as well as executing publicity assignments for other institutions of state and organisations that needed the services of the ISD.
Mrs. Essel gave the commendation while interacting with her staff in Bolgatanga, which was her first formal meeting with ISD staff in the region since she assumed office a few years ago. Her visit to the Upper East came just a day after she had participated in the National Policy Summit in Tamale in the Northern Region.
The Acting Director told the ISD staff she was aware of the hardships and inconvenient conditions under which majority of them were working in their various districts and pledged that, Management at the Headquarters was pursuing every opportunity that would better the lot of the Department. She revealed that, in recent times such efforts had yielded results as some quantity of brand new Dell Laptops were distributed to the regions in March 2018. Meanwhile her office, through the Office of Head of Civil Service had also successfully conducted a scheme of service training in August 2018, for officers who were due for promotion, all at no cost to the officers concerned.
She said the Headquarters also continuously seeks collaborations with other state agencies and institutions that needed the services of the ISD as such partnerships bring out the expertise the ISD has been known for over the decades. She mentioned for instance that in the recent past, the ISD had undertaken successful public education campaigns and awareness creation exercises for the Ghana National Household Registry, the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Ghana Census of Agriculture among other relevant assignments.
Mrs. Essel acknowledged that “it will take a gradual process to meet the critical logistics needs of the ISD but in time, every regional and district ISD office will get at least basic equipment to do their work”. She revealed that several meetings with governments had a consensus that, the ISD needed regular in-service training programmes and retooling such as, having new Information Vans and sets of Public Address Equipment to make the Department more effective. However, she noted that, the amount involved in doing all these at once was huge and that, there were discussions to procure and do allocations in phases such that, each region gets a few of these essential equipment to work with in the interim.
She cautioned her staff against acts of insubordination to their superior officers and especially, to the political leadership stressing that, “at no point in time should you quarrel with the DCEs at the Assemblies or wherever you are posted as Information Officers. Always offer your advice and expertise as Civil Servants and as ISD staff, be diplomatic in your dealings at the work place”.
A Director in charge of Finance and Administration at the ISD Headquarters, Mr. Charles Wereko who was also part of the Acting Director’s team hinted that, the ISD was scheduled to roll out monthly media and public briefings at the district level from the beginning of 2019. He added that, Information Officers at the various Municipal and District Assemblies will take charge of organising such fora in consultation with Management of the Assemblies. The objective of these briefings he noted, are to continuously expose the public to the development projects and Government’s intervention programmes at the local level and other positive happenings at the Assemblies.
Meanwhile, the Acting Upper East Regional Information Officer [RIO], Mr. Bennin D. Issifu in a welcome address earlier, disclosed that the ISD had a regional staff strength of 37 and operational districts numbering 15 but added that, none of these districts had the full complement of staff.
He observed that since he assumed office on 15th August, 2018, he had received optimum cooperation and support from his colleague staff and the Regional Coordinating Council. He therefore hoped that, such show of oneness of purpose among the staff in the region will continue to grow as that was essential in achieving the mission and vision of the ISD.
Mr. Bennin reported to the Ag. Director and her team that, the 2018 Town Hall Meetings were on course and that the Builsa North, Talensi and Nabdam Districts had already held their sessions with great participation from stakeholders while the Pusiga District was scheduled to hold its meeting in the early part of October 2018. He also revealed that his staff had filed relevant news reports which have since been published while excellent coordination with media houses in the region, also brought about wide publicity for events at the Assemblies where officers work as the Public Relations Officers.
According to Mr. Bennin, his staff were also instrumental in the conduct of interviews for the recruitment of NABCO personnel at the various Assemblies especially those who applied under the Civic Ghana module. He called on the Ag. Director to expedite action on the posting of some 36 NABCO personnel who have been earmarked for deployment to the Upper East directorate of the ISD noting that, their coming on board will enhance the staffing situation in the region.
Mr. Bennin mentioned the lack of office equipment such as computers and accessories, lack of internet access, inadequate staff numbers at both the regional and district levels, obsolete public address equipment and lack of well-equipped audio-visual information vans as some of the obstacles impeding ISD’s work in the region.
Meanwhile, the ISD Ag. Director and her team had since left for the Upper West Region for a similar interface meeting with ISD in that region.
Source:Bongo District ISD Officer/Peter Wedam
