Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
We have observed with surprise and a sense of disappointment the low-key publicity accorded the Akufo-Addo regime imported state-of-the-art information vans.
We have been constrained under the circumstances to juxtapose the near silent distribution of the vans against the cacophonic and propaganda-propelled rhetoric over the launch of 24-hour economy market projects, sanitary pads for young girls and the ‘Nkoko Nkitinkiti’ initiative.
The modern vans are equipped with state-of-the-art gadgets to facilitate the dissemination of information at the local levels of society, concept thought out at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and as a general retooling of the Information Services Department (ISD).
The low-key inauguration of the vans for the use of the equipment-starved Information Services Department and its reduction to regional ministers’ task is because they are not the initiation of the incumbent government.
A high-key inauguration would be deficient of substance if a background of the initiative is not included in the presidential addresses accompanying such functions, in which case the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would be mentioned.
As we pointed out in an earlier commentary, the non-adherence to the principle of continuum in governance is a factor which accounts for loss of taxpayers’ monies.
It is unimaginable that the vans which arrived in November 2024 have had to wait till now before being distributed. The ISD staff should count themselves lucky; the Weija Specialist Children’s Hospital has not been so lucky, still waiting for commissioning long after the scaffolds were removed.
A news story in this edition is about the former Information Minister Ms. Fatimatu Abubakar’s explanation of the vans without ambiguity.
We salute the initiative of the former minister and the Ofoase-Ayirebi Member of Parliament (MP), Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, then Information Minister, who both initiated the move to retool the ISD, the outcome being the arrival of the vans.
The department was so equipment-deficient that it existed only in name, its below average motivated staff perpetually morose.
It took a forward-looking minister in the person of Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and his deputy Fatimatu Abubakar to fashion a way out of the predicament in which this typical civil service outfit is embroiled in.
We have taken note of the flurry of charitable words being heaped upon the President for no work done in the acquisition of the vans and their high-tech contents.
The regional ministers falling over each other to be noticed cannot be faulted for expressing gratitude to the President for releasing the vans; these are some of the opportunities for ‘doing some eye service’.
Ghanaians are an interesting lot in this social media age. They are expressing all manner of remarks about the vans against the backdrop of the commissioning of the ‘abobulance’, as they have dubbed the lowest level of ambulance for the Free Primary Healthcare initiative.
It is our hope that these sophisticated vans will be properly maintained so they would last long. Using them to cart firewood and goats on market days would defeat the purpose for which they were acquired.