By Patrick Biddah
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), has asked President John Dramani Mahama, to clarify the dissolution of the Ministry of Information.
According to the GJA, the President should come clear on what has happened to the Ministry of Information, since it hasn’t found expression in any of the Ministerial portfolios he has announced.
“It is pertinent to ask: Where is the Ministry of Information now? We want clarification from the President on the rationale for the removal of the Ministry of Information from his government portfolios”, the GJA asked.
Addressing a press conference in Accra, the president of the Ghana Journalists Association, Albert Dwumfour, called on the President make that clarification.
“We observed that whilst the first Mahama Administration saw the merger of Communication and Information ministries, the second Mahama administration appears to completely dissolve the Ministry of Information. We are appealing for clarity on this new policy direction”, he asked.
He also asked about funding, saying the GJA, will be pleased to know which Ministry will from henceforth be holding the budget for the state-owned media houses.
“We also want to know the budget-holding Ministry for the state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Ghana News Agency. Our members in these state-owned media houses want some clarity on the new policy direction.”, he further asked.
He also delved into knowing about the development for the media.
“Colleagues, the nomination of a Minister of State for Government Communication may be instructive. However, we want to know if the Government has any plan of continuing with the Media Development programmes of the previous government, including the ‘Media Capacity Enhancement Programme’ and the ‘Coordinated Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists’”, he quizzed
Mr Dwumfour, who spoke on a wide range of issues , also hinted at the next election of the GJA executives.
“All too soon, our tenure is coming to an end (on 30th June, 2025). We have tentatively scheduled to hold elections in June 2025.”, he said
Details of the elections according to him will be announced in due course, adding that it will be organised at both national and regional levels.
Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama, speaking to the media at an engagement yesterday, January 23, 2025, said that the ministry was scrapped to help achieve his promise to reduce the size of government.
According to him, with regards to government communications, you would notice that there is no Ministry of Information in the line-up of 23 ministries that we recently announced.
“That was partly in response to our promise to downsize government,” he said.
The president indicated that the role of the Ministry of Information, which is to disseminate information to the people of Ghana, has now been shifted to the presidency through the creation of the Minister of State in charge of communication, which is likely to be headed by Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the Acting Spokesperson of the President.
“But then it also meant that we had to be very strategic with the way we dealt with the flow of information from the government because that is critical to the success of whatever we intend to do.
“And so the structure we took was to bring information into the presidency and that is how come we have a Minister of State in charge of government communication. And then to make sure that we are able to anchor it with a string of strong communication professionals in the most critical sectors. So, that we are able to guarantee as much information flow to the public as possible,” he said.
The president disclosed that the Information Services Department (ISD), which was one of the departments of the Ministry of Information, would now be under the presidency.
“One of the things that remains to be done is to bring the Information Services Department (ISD) under the presidency and modernise that organisation from a ‘civil service organisation’ into a modern organisation that guarantees information flow to the public on whatever the government is doing.”
The Ministry of Information was one of seven ministries either scrapped or merged with others by President John Dramani Mahama.
The other ministries that were either scrapped or merged with others are the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of National Security, the Ministry of Chieftaincy, and the Ministry of Works and Housing.