Public officials urged to use authorised email addresses

Professor Harry Akosa, a lecturer at the Information Studies Department of the University Ghana, has urged public officials to use authorised e-mail addresses as a measure to protect public records.

He said most public officials had now resorted to the use of their private e-mail addresses, thereby making it difficult to track and properly manage public records, especially when such officials are changed from office.

“These public officials however work on behalf of the state and it is important that they are compelled to use the official e-mail addresses of their organisations and the institutions so that such communications could be properly tracked and protected by records managers,” he said.

Prof Akosa said this on Wednesday when he appeared before the Judgement Debt Commission to represent the Head of the Information Studies Department of the University of Ghana, to answer questions on how it trains managers of public records.

He said the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) was not performing well as there was no record policy in the country.

He said even though the Act 535 which established the legal framework for record management came into existence about 17 years ago, there was still no legal regulation to enforce it.

He said inadequate staff to man record management, recruitment of unskilled staff and the lack of recognition of the critical role of records management by government officials were some of the factors affecting PRAAD.

He said there was also no preparation for disaster backups and between 2001-2011, a research conducted revealed that 30 public places got burnt including the house of former President Jerry John Rawlings and many public records got destroyed.

Prof Akosa therefore called for collaboration between PRAAD and the National Disaster and Management Organisation to come up with an information disaster management system.

He also called for an accelerated recruitment of qualified staff, in service training and the immediate sensitisation of public officials to understand records management and the critical role it played.

He said about 70 per cent of recurrent expenditure by state institutions is used to buy items for gathering information and it is important that officials who wilfully destroyed public records are sanctioned.

Mr Felix Nyarko Ampong, a representative of Head of Civil Service, also appeared to answer questions on how it advises the Service on keeping records.

He said the Service had sent a draft regulation to the office of Attorney General to get legal backing for the enforcement of the legal framework.

Mr Seth Mensah Dumega, Director of Legal Service at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, also appeared to confirm the payment made to the Delta Company for procuring 21,000 metric tonnes of white maize for the Ministry.

He confirmed the payment of judgment debt of 20 billion cedis to the Delta Company for the supply of the white maize which he said was carried out because of an anticipated shortage of food at that time.