Online, public, face of ministries: carelessness galore!
I wonder how many of our Government ministers, and other officials, take the trouble to check occasionally the information on their official websites. The findings of recent browsing sessions I undertook point to a lot of shoddy work, outdated reports, ignorance and sheer carelessness.
Advertisement
Even a cursory reading of the sites of some government ministries reveals that people charged with preparing information for the sites have been delivering mainly substandard work. Yet, that is their online, public, face.
In this information and communications technology (ICT) era, undoubtedly the Internet has made the work of journalists and researchers considerably easier and also lightened the workload of public relations departments. Correspondingly, Internet sites have become a must for institutions. They feel that they must have an online presence to be seen as trendy, ICT-savvy.
Thus one would expect that officials entrusted with the task of looking after the sites would take great care with the information they put there and also how their organisation is presented.
Yet, I came across glaringly outdated information on some official sites.
For example, although records say that the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) replaced the Ghana Tourist Board as far back as 2011 “as the main implementing body of the Ministry of Tourism”, and we’re now in February 2016, there is still one posting about the ‘Ghana Tourist Board’, with no update or indication in the text about the new name. Although there are other updated articles, this one does not mention the change at all.
And that misleading information is under ‘Ministry of Tourism – Ghana Tourism Homepage’! Even the Wikipedia entry is illustrated with a ‘Ghana Tourist Board’ logo.
Unbelievably, it gets worse: Under the picture of Mrs Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, the present Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, the caption names her as “Mrs Juliana Azumah-Mensah, Minister of Tourism”. Mrs Azumah-Mensah was Tourism Minister 2009 – 2010, under President Atta Mills! And the Tourism site has two different spellings of the incumbent Minister’s name.
Other Trending Stories
So nobody at the Ministry or the GTA ever reads their online entries? How then will tourists, researchers, etc. know what information to work with?
No wonder the attention to basics – such as the provision of, and the state of, toilets in public places – that tells a visitor that somebody cares, is evidently missing from our tourism sector!
Curiously, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development is still offering on its front page ‘News Update’ and a series of “News Flash” items, all from 2014.
What about the ministry’s activities in 2015? Surely, by now, it being 2016, all the previous year ought news flashes’ to be under a different heading, not ‘News Flash’.
The Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development is also another office seemingly stuck in a time warp. Most of the news items there are dated March, 2015.
Strangely, none of their feature articles I saw had dates on them, only the byline. But evidently if an article has no date on it, that omission presents a big problem to researchers and others who may need that information, as they will not know how reliable it is.
As for the Interior Ministry, it seems they cannot decide whether their name should be ‘Ministry FOR the Interior’ or Ministry OF the Interior’. On the main list of ministries, it says ‘Ministry FOR….’, but its site says “welcome to the Ministry OF…’. So which is correct? We, members of the public, are seeking guidance here!
However, Interior did have a positive aspect. It was one of the few ministerial sites I looked at that has 2016 news.
With the Ministry of Trade and Industry, apparently anything goes. Else why should bizarre items, such as showbiz news, be featured on their site? An example was this headline: “Yvonne Nelson, Pappy Kojo in new TV Series”, followed by: “The two (Pappy Kojo and Yvonne Nelson) are rumoured to be on a romantic ride ….”
What on earth has that got to do with the official site of the Ministry of Trade of Ghana?
Also, the adverts on that site, some of them reading like product endorsements by the ministry all go to give the impression that whoever is in charge of that page has a free hand to put anything there, because there’s no supervision!
The Ministry of Education has as the first report under its ‘Recent news’, an item dated 15th December 2015. Is that truly its “recent news”?
Advertisement
Then, the text goes on to state that the Minister, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang “has conferred with the Chief Executive Officer of Vodofone (sic) Ghana”. Initially I thought ‘Vodofone’ was a typographical error, but reading on, I counted at least six other such misspellings.
Or is “Vodofone” the new name for VODAFONE Ghana, whose Chief Executive is Mr.Haris Broumidis?
Even the list of the Ministers on the Government’s site has the heading “MINISTERS OF STATES”! Does Ghana have “states”? It also has the middle name of the Education Minister as ‘Nana’, instead of ‘Naana’.
Happily, one site deserves commendation because it has current, helpful information: the Ministry of Transport: “Hon Fifi Kwetey, Minister for Transport was appointed by the President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, on 19th January, 2016. Prior to assuming his current position, he served as Minister of Food and Agriculture from July 2014 to January 2016.”
Advertisement
Nevertheless, the general careless approach to online postings on government sites should be cause for concern; it cannot be good for the image of the country. Does it mean that nobody bothers to look at what their webmasters are presenting as their institution’s public face for a global audience? They do not care?
My conclusion is that most of the people in charge of the sites could benefit from a crash course in how to do their work. They need to know what to put on their official sites in order to achieve the objective of providing accurate, up to date information about their institution to project it well and, above all, demonstrate meticulousness.
(ajoayeboahafari@yahoo.com)