A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Ministry of Information (MOI) and the Ghana Statistical Service as part of efforts to retool the Information Services Department (ISD) in order for it to deliver on its mandate.
The MoU, which was signed between the two parties seeks to train officers of the ISD in all Metropolitan Municipal and Districts Assemblies (MMDAs) in the country on how to gather information that will guide government in the implementation of its policies.
The signing was done at a brief ceremony in Accra yesterday.
Speaking after the ceremony, Minister for Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah under whose purview the ISD directly falls, pointed out that the partnership could not have come at a better time than this.
He said in an era where almost everything is driven by information gathering and scientific research, this partnership will help enhance the ISD’s research unit so much so that it can gather feedback from the public and send same to government for further policy actions.
“This is a very important step in an exercise to reorganize the ISD and it is born out of an internal identification of an opportunity and a challenge. The ISD traditionally compiles what it calls Public Reaction Report (PRR) where when something occurs in one part of the country, in any district, they will put together a report and share same with the Minister responsible for Information who will then share same to inform central government understanding of what is going on.
“We identified, when I assumed office a few years ago that there was an opportunity and a potential to convert this Public Reaction Report into a more scientifically-driven research instrument that can guide the Government of Ghana, regardless of which government is in power, on what the people of Ghana really think about specific matters and the kind of interventions they will want to see implemented,” he added.
The MoU was signed by Prof. Samuel Annim on behalf of the GSS and the Acting Director of the ISD, Mr. Owusu Amoah on behalf of the Ministry of Information and witnessed by the Minister and staff of the GSS, ISD and Ministry of Information.
On his part, Professor Annim stressed the need for state owned enterprises to tap into the GSS’ know-how to improve on their workflow as mandated by law.
He said the collaboration will help improve ISD’s information gathering processes pledging the support of his outfit to seeing to it that the ISD is repositioned as a research-oriented department of the Ministry of Information.
The Acting ISD Director Mr. Amoah bemoaned the absence of information gathering systems that will see to it that the ISD makes meaningful inputs into government decision making processes. He said however that, with the coming into force of the partnership with the GSS, the ISD can now gather feedback and relay same to government for further policy actions.
