Ministries websites content outdated

In contemporary times a website is an essential tool for any organisation, including government ministries. 

But it has emerged that only 12 of the 23 government ministries have fully updated their websites to capture the details of their respective heads and managements.

Indeed, three months into the four-year mandate of the new government, more than half of the ministries still bear information from the previous administration on their websites.

Worse still, many of these websites hardly carry any information or data of relevance to their sector.

The ministries, it has turned out, has not been able to follow the deliberate steps of the seat of government, Jubilee House, in updating its information system.

Daily Graphic checks indicate that the website of the Presidency went down for about two weeks when the new government took over and returned with a refreshed system that contains updates on all relevant information within the central system of government operations.

The story is different from the side of many of the ministries.

State of websites

For example, the Daily Graphic found out that the Ministry of Sports and Recreation maintains the previous name, Ministry of Youth and Sports, on the website.

More surprisingly, the ministry has the profile of the immediate past minister, Mustapha Ussif, and his deputy, Evans Opoku Bobie, displayed on the website as the substantive ministers.

The list of various ministers who have headed the ministry has also not been updated.

Indeed, the last name on the list displayed on the website still reads Mustapha Ussif (2021 to date).

The same applies to the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition; the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection; the Ministry of Roads and Highways, and the Ministry of Transport.

Although the news and events menu of the individual websites provide some up-to-date events and news on the current Minister of Sports and Recreation, Kofi Adams; Minister of Energy, John Jinapor; Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, and the Minister of Transport, Joseph Bukari Nikpe, in their respective ministries, the profiles of the new ministers do not appear on the website.

The new Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment currently has no active official website.

Browsing results from the websites of the Ministry of Works, Housing and Water Resources, and the Attorney-General’s Department and Ministry of Justice often read: “your connection is not private: attackers might be trying to steal your information”. 

Browsing results from the websites of the Ministry of Defence for the past two weeks read: “our website is undergoing maintenance”.

The Ministry of Works, Housing and Water Resources; Ministry of Labour, Jobs and Employment; the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture could not be accessed.

The Ministry of Education has uploaded profile of the new sector minister, Haruna Iddrisu, but has not added his profile picture.

The Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Clement Apaak, has neither his profile nor his picture on the website at all.

Deficit

The deficit in updates on the websites are witnessed in the wake of the fusions and mergers, as well as the change in nomenclature of some ministries, as President John Mahama’s second term kicked in on January 7, this year.

From the previous 30 ministries, President Mahama has compressed government machinery into 23 ministries, with Local Government now fused with Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, while Transport now contains all of the previous Transport, Railway Development and Aviation ministries, among other restructuring realignment measures.

Daily Graphic checks have suggested that some of the ministries in deficit have initiated steps to correct the situation.

For instance, the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs has requested its Information Technology outfit to work with National Information Technology Agency (NITA), which is in charge of the infrastrcuture and domain name, to effect the name change for the website.

Potential misinformation

Offering his views on the situation, a tech consultant, Maximus Ametorgbor, expressed fear about the spread of misinformation and unverified information due to the delay in updating the ministries’ websites.

Mr Ametorgbor emphasised the importance of timely website updates, particularly for public-facing websites.

He stated that a website that was not updated regularly could lead to a lack of trust in the information provided, and could also create opportunities for cyber threats.

Commenting on the accessibility to some of the websites, he said there was a possibility of some malware attacking the website, and as such they needed to be worked  on before users could access the websites. 

Centralised IT system

The Chief Executive Officer of Techfocus24, Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona, called on the government to emulate the efforts by the previous government to have a centralised IT system for government ministries to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability.

He explained to the Daily Graphic that the previous government, through the NITA, entered into agreement with a private agency to manage the websites of the various agencies.

Mr Dowuona, a journalist with more than two decades of practice, indicated that the centralised system provided “improved efficiency as it could streamline their IT operations, reduce costs and provide a platform for information dissemination, reducing the risk of outdated or inaccurate information”.

He said by hosting data remotely, government ministries could reduce the risk of security breaches and cyber threats, adding that the decentralised approach to IT systems in government ministries often led to a number of problems, including outdated information, broken links and security vulnerabilities.

Mr Dowuona also highlighted the importance of investor confidence in government ministries' IT systems, and emphasised that investors often relied on ministry websites to access information and to contact key officials.

He added that outdated or inaccurate information could deter investment.