By M.A. Egge
The new Minister of Information, Culture and National Guidance who has just taken over the helmsman-ship at the ministry has pledged to make sure that the characteristically descriptive name of the institution lives to its intended standards.
He pointed out that he would focus on uplifting to improve both the capacities of services provided and skills of the staffers.
The minister expressed the sentiments at the hand-over function held at the ministry’s headquarters held on Wednesday where he and his deputy Hon. Musa Askar Guleid took over from their predecessors Ali Mohamed Hassan and Said Habane respectively.
The new minister of Information who has been at the helm of the legislature for over a dozen years as the deputy speaker and an intellectual and top cleric in his own right, promised to build all the capacity facilities of the television, radio stations and their staff and make it a formidable force to be reckoned with hence mirror the essence of what the nation of Somaliland entails.
Among his statements were: “I want to make the ministry an institution that reflects the nation, that disseminates reliable, appealing, trustworthy, and interesting news; that it should be a ministry that guides the nation, defends it if it is attacked, and disseminates the best of it if the nation moves forward”.
He continued, “I have plans to establish the ministry’s strategic policy, improve the tools the ministry uses, and I will work to build the skills and knowledge of the ministry’s employees.”
He spoke of the need to safeguard, build and develop the moral culture in society and work towards mutual brethren-ship, harmonious setting and social cohesion within the country.
While lamenting on the miss-use of the social media, he decried the fact that unwarranted praise is given to one who uses the platform for spite, abusive and malicious intentions rending people asunder while sadly the society deems such ill innuendoes of waywardness as heroic deeds.
He equally decried the invasion of perverse social culture through deliberate obstinacy that has been perpetuated by social media and needs to be tethered and controlled to put evil intentions in check.
The ministry DG Mr. Mustafa Abdi Isse gave details of the significant activities undertaken during the tenure of the outgoing officials.
The director said that most of the positive activities carried out by the ministry were the efforts of Minister Ali Marehan.
In fact many relay and booster FM stations were established in all major regions of the country.
The DG said that there are projects that are currently underway, such as the construction of a theater for five to six hundred people with all the necessary modern theater equipment, which is almost complete, the implementation of a radio station intended to reach the entire Horn of Africa. He pointed out that only the electricity supply is still incomplete; and also the implementation of a media training institute had been done with the first batch of which has just graduated.
The outgoing minister Ali Marehaan explained about the technical hiccups that hit the solar panels installation arising. He however said that works on the radio was about to be completed with less than 10 per cent of the chores remaining.
With the solar panels functioning fully, the large amounts of fuel to generate power would be a thing of the past.