The archiving and dissemination of social marketing information of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources through its official Website is crucial and instrumental in the promotion of government’s New Direction Agenda and the ministry’s core mandate of promoting responsible and sustainable fisheries practices, while contributing to poverty reduction and wealth creation in the country.

 The Web Site serves as a very important and useful platform that showcases the ministry’s activities by disseminating factual and up-to date information about the sector to the public.

In view of the aforementioned, coupled with the need to provide relevant skills that would enable staff of the ministry effectively use the technology, a one–day Hands-On-Training Programme on the use of Website, email and e-pets form administration system has been organized for Senior Staff members of the ministry.

Declaring the training workshop officially opened, the Deputy Secretary of the ministry, Mohamed Jalloh, stressed the importance of the programme, noting that the technology has become very useful in promoting development activities of individuals, institutions and governments worldwide.

He entreated participants to take the exercise seriously and make the best use of the opportunity.

Senior Human Resource Officer, Moses Kamara said, the programme was one among series of training programmes geared towards building the capacity of staff of the ministry for effective and efficient service delivery.

 Senior Press Officer in the ministry, Max A. Konneh, underscored the importance of the training and expressed the need for institutions to put more emphasis on public information, adding that “information is power” and one of the easiest means of   promoting good governance. He reminded the gathering about the Act that brought to being the Right to Access Information Commission which mandate is to promote access to information to enhance   transparency and accountability. He urged all to regard the Website as a useful tool that would promote their activities and contribute to its development.

The Facilitator, Milton Jusu who is also the Information, Communication and Technology Manager in the Ministry, called on all to constantly visit the ministry’s Website and be mindful of the contents they provide as the technology is used and visited by millions of people worldwide. Mr. Jusu also used the opportunity to navigate through the ministry’s official website and identified Menus that he regarded as important and noteworthy, including the Media Centre, Home page, Service Charter, projects and divisions. He also taught the trainees how to access the “Universal Resource Locator” (URL) which helps them log into their e-mails, navigate to the Website as well as “Book marking” of pages which also helps to save information for future reference. The ICT expert also admonished participants to take the training seriously as filling of e-pets forms have now become a matter of must for unit heads in Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

During the interactive session, participants recommended that training of such nature must continue heads of unit ensure they contribute fully to the development of the Website; all information must be well edited before they are uploaded into the Website. They also expressed the need to create a hyper-link that will enable them navigate to websites of other institutions such as the Public Service Commission, (PSC), train a resident Administrator to compliment the effort of the ICT Manager who acts as the sole Administrator and showcase  other important partners and projects on the site, among others.