Interview with Mr. A.D Koblavie, Deputy Director of Information Ministry of Information

Click to Play

The focus of the interview was on his views about the Ghana.gov portal.

What in your opinion are the benefits of the Ghana.gov portal to the Ghanaian community?

Before the portal came into being, Ghana was not known on the web.Invariably there used to be no formal information about Ghana on the world wide web.With the establishment of the portal, Ghana is now on the web.The Ghana.gov portal is a one stop shop for information on Ghana.Since the advent of the portal, the world now can access information about Ghana especially on Government official information on set up, activities, speeches, press releases and programmes including financial statement of the year which is updated on daily basis. Various institutions are actually acknowledging the content of information on the portal.

Through the portal people have become aware of the potential of Ghana.Even tourists and researchers use the web master to gather lots more information about Ghana.The establishment of the portal has really enhanced information on Ghana for quick and easy access.

What are the challenges in generating and managing content for the portal?

It is a big job managing content for the national portal. In the initial stages, there were problems in getting vital and authentic information about Government or even about the set-up. It was very difficult getting people to provide responses to questionnaires in an attempt to get clearance for alot of things but in the long run, we have been able to work hard to establish links with the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies to get the consent of the Ministers and Chief Directors about the role of the portal in processing documents for the Ghanaian community. Through these linkages now have information from the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies on annual baisis for the portal. In addition we have collected the email contacts of various institutions to provide or feed the portal with on-line information. Eventhough we have passed through alot of stages, we are now getting used to the on-line business of communication.