A day’s training workshop on the Covid-19 has been organised for regional information officers (RIOs) of the Information Services Department in Accra.
Organised by the Ministry of Information in collaboration with the Ghana Health Services (GHS), it was to equip the officers with the requisite knowledge and techniques for disseminating information on the outbreak to the public.
As trainer-of-trainers, the RIOs, were also to educate officers at the district and sub-district levels to enable them to disseminate information at the local level on the Covid-19.
The participants were taken through all the nagging questions bothering on the outbreak and how the public would have to deal with such situations when they occur.
Opening the workshop, the Deputy Minister of Information, Pius Enam-Hadziedeh said information dissemination at this stage was very critical to ensure calm.
He said the ISD was a critical agency in this direction since it had the necessary infrastructure to disseminate information across the nook and cranny of the country.
Mr Enam-Hadziedeh said though the pandemic was a health issue, its management could not be left in the hands of health managers in the country alone, as such the government was deploying all its resources to ensure that the situation did not escalate.
“The Covid-19 is a government issue and we must all treat it as a government issue to ensure that we do not create fear and panic,” he added.
The minister explained that the pandemic, though a misfortune, provided staff of the ISD the opportunity to justify why the government would not only have to maintain it but resource it to contribute to national development.
“The Minister of Information has been making a strong case at cabinet for the ISD to be maintained as against suggestions and calls from some quarters and individuals for it to be scrapped and I think this pandemic presents us with the opportunity to make a case for ourselves,” he emphasised.
Mr Enam-Haziedeh said it was important that officers at the ISD helped in getting the right information to the public to allay the fears of the citizens.
He said the government would continue to provide the necessary logistics and support that would help in the information dissemination on the pandemic.
By Cliff Ekuful
