The Communications Unit of the Ghana Hajj Board will set up a Special Desk at the various stations of the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia to ensure free flow of information.
The Head of the Communications A.R Gomda of the Hajj Board has indicated his strategies for this year’s religious exercise in a document.
“In line with our mission of effective delivery, we of the Communications Directorate of the Ghana Hajj Board have outlined a set of operational strategies to handle the information and communication needs of Ghanaian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia. This novelty is to ensure a free flow of information and prevent anxiety and discomfort of the pilgrims,” he indicated.
The desk, he explained, is designed to process and deliver credible information to the various publics of the Hajj Board at Madina, Makkah, Mina, Arafah and Jeddah, the key stations in the pilgrimage.
Among other things, the Desk intends to conduct daily briefings on the affairs of Hajj, he explained, and added that “two teams have been proposed to man this desk in collaboration with relevant units of the Board. These are the Complaint and Settlement Team and Communication Research and Information Management Team.”
The teams would be responsible for receiving, documenting, and analysing complaints from pilgrims and other relevant persons, he stated. Efforts would be made to settle matters in collaboration with the Da’wa Committee.
Since the entire operation is communication-oriented, the Communications team would build a pool of scientific data on facts about our prospects and challenges. This explains the necessity of the Communication Research and Information Management. The team to handle the task of research would work with technical assistance from the IT Unit, headed by Dr. Mohammed Abdulai Sani,” he pointed out.
“As a pilot project, the research would be a small-scale scientific exploration of certain challenges, assumptions and claims about Hajj operations. A reasonable sample of the population of the pilgrims would be selected for the empirical exercise. Questionnaires and interviews would constitute the main tools of data collection.”
A special software may be developed by the IT Unit for statistical analysis of data. Findings would lead to a number of recommendations to guide future operations of Hajj.”
In related Hajj issues, the Chairman of the Board has directed the movement of an advance team of board members to Saudi Arabia to prepare the grounds for the arrival of pilgrims scheduled to commence on 10th August 2017.
Last Monday, Tobinco Pharmaceutical Company Limited made a donation of drugs to the Medical Unit of the Hajj Board at the Hajj Village.
The drugs worth over GH¢7,000 were presented on behalf of the company by Ben Npabi Tetteh, General Manager, Marketing and Communications of the Company, to Dr. Zakari Seidu, Head of the Medical Unit.
In yet another development, MTN yesterday handed over a refurbished facility within the Hajj Village which would be used for the conducting of pre-departure formalities.