There appears to be no longer confidentiality about some state matters in recent times. The oath of secrecy administered on public officers upon their assumption of office means a little these days.
Very delicate and confidential documents find their ways to the public domain through social media, with such reckless abandon and we wonder whether those behind them appreciate the implications of their unworthy actions.
We have hardly spoken this confidentiality breach as a people even as we lap what is churned out on social media without raising eyebrows. We have subtly acquiesced to the anomaly which is openly endangering our national security.
No country, worth its salt, and mindful about its national security, would fold its arms and allow things to follow this path without addressing them.
We are enduring one of the drawbacks of social media because, we have not thought out a response mechanism to the challenge posed by the irresponsibility.
Our topic has been informed by the directive to MMDAs, SOEs and other public officials to switch over to the state operated platforms for government correspondence.
We find this directive which takes effect from January next year as an appropriate response to the challenge posed by the leakages we have observed since the advent of social media.
Not even our security agencies have been spared the leakages which allow for the display on social media of sensitive matter.
The Ghana Armed Forces is, however, an exception to the leakages. We wish they could teach the sister agencies how they have succeeded in ensuring that “Restricted” stuff remain so no matter what.
Young persons in very sensitive places in the public service are eager to release onto social media, confidential material with glee. We wonder what they seek to achieve by being the origins of such leaked materials.
Without threats of sanctions, such directives stand the possibility of being breached. We find it, therefore, appropriate that heads of department and others have been warned about the consequences of their failure to adhere to the directive as spelt out by the Minister of Communication and Digitisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful.
It is incomprehensible that some heads would even contemplate overlooking the directive as laid out.
There could not have been a better response mechanism to the current reckless management of government information at the hands of mischief makers. These persons would stop at nothing in their bid to not only throw dust into the eyes of the public, but to compromise state security.
Being a smart arrangement indeed, we are excited that it incorporates on a single platform such items as memos, leave management, intra and inter correspondence management, among others.
The impetus which the smart platform provides would inure to the protection of the fine details of the running of the government machinery away from mischief makers.
Making use of digitisation is so relieving and protecting of vital state stuff. We doff our hats for the originators of the smart move.