District assemblies asked to use ICT in records management
District assemblies must adopt the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance their records management.
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The acting Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS), Dr Abdulai Darimani, who made the call, stressed that assemblies could no longer continue to keep their records as previously, “in this era of computer age”.
Dr Darimani was addressing the closing session of an eight-week capacity-building programme for 38 staff from selected district assemblies across the country.
The participants, who received certificates in local governance administration, were taken through topics, including “Local government organisation and management; statistics for local level planning and environmental health and sanitation”.
Information management
Dr Darimani attributed the delays in communicating issues to and from the assemblies to the continuous reliance on the physical exchange of information.
“It also continues to add to the cost of managing information. So going forward, we need to be thinking of how to improve upon the information technology component of information management at the district assemblies and the public sector in general,” he said.
He said the ILGS was promoting the e-learning platform, which was not strictly on information management, “but we believe that as the e-learning picks up, it might produce certain lessons, which might be useful in initiating actions that will lead to digitisation and information management.”
Dr Darimani said the ILGS was prepared to partner with the Local Government Service Secretariat to build the capacity of the record officers of the district assemblies.
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Partisan politics
The Director, Management and Technical Services of the Local Government Service Secretariat, Mrs Mabel Amoako-Atta, reminded the staff of the service that it was illegal, according to the code of conduct of the service, for a member of staff to engage in partisan politics while at post.
She said with the upcoming district level election, it was possible some staff were nurturing the idea of contesting and warned that punitive action would be taken against such workers.
Mrs Amoako-Atta advised those with the intention of engaging in active partisan politics or contesting in the district level elections to resign from the service.
Impact of the course
She said the idea of the course was to equip them with the requisite skills to better render their services to the public and advised them to share those skills with colleagues who were not able to attend the course.
Mrs Amoako-Atta urged the participants to let the knowledge they had acquired reflect in their work and urged them to “let us see how the course facilitates effective service delivery at your districts.”