Accra, March 3, 2018//-Ghana’s Minister of Information, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has charged workers of the Information Services Department (ISD) to be politically neutral to enable them to contribute meaningfully to national development.
“Voting is a one day event but the nation Ghana will endure until Jesus Christ comes and so, our partisan considerations cannot be allowed to interfere with the greater vision of developing Ghana” he noted.
“We want Ghana to develop, it doesn’t matter which political party develops it, whether it’s YPP, QZZ or CCD, whichever party ensures that Ghana moves forward, we all will enjoy. We all go to the same market, take our children to the same schools, and ply the same roads. When you go to the market to buy tomatoes and the price is prohibitive, it will not discriminate against an NPP person and an NDC person” he said.
According to him, ISD is the policy implementation and information dissemination arm of government, mandated to voice out the virtues and values of Ghana and not to mingle themselves in partisan politics.
He made these assertions at a staff durbar where donations of about 181 laptops, tyres and car batteries were distributed to the districts and regional ISDs, in Accra.
The laptops, which are already internet enabled, he said, would enable them to disseminate information from across the districts and regional offices to the Head Office and wherever information would be needed, whereas the tyres and batteries would put their vehicles in a better condition for their operations.
However, Minister commended staff ISD for their public education in the areas of tax education, the fight against illegal mining (galamsey), and budget campaigns and many more.
“I believe that all of these campaigns have helped to strengthen your roles as the major carriers of government information. “In many areas because of the proliferation of FM radio stations, people in urban centres turn to underestimate the importance of the green and yellow van, but in many of our rural communities across the country, even to this day, the yellow and green colours are the authentic voices of government and once any sound emanate from it, they know that this is the voice of government,” he reiterated.
Meanwhile, Mr Hamid gave the assurance of his outfit’s commitment to revamping the ISD in promoting national governance. Nonetheless, the ISD needs advancement of national cohesion, unity and vision as well.
However, he charged the staff to work diligently devoid of malice, acrimony, hatred and bias, to make way for national development.
By Sammy Adjei, African Eye Report
