The Penplusbtye, an Information and
Communication Technology (ICT)-based organization situated in Accra, the
capital of Ghana, has called on the Police Administration in the country not to
ban social media in the forthcoming elections, reports ITRealms.
The Executive Director
of Penplusbtye, Mr. Kwami Ahiabenu II, made this call in the sidelines of
a social accountability forum held in Accra, urged the Police Administration to
consider setting up a social media monitoring centre, instead of total ban on social
media activities on election day.
A Ghana News Agency
(GNA) report available to ITRealms, Ahiabenu was quoted as declaring, “A total
ban of social media on election day would increase suspicions and create
an information gap that can easily be filled with more misinformation and
rumours.”
He also said social
media had become a very important ICT tool with most of its contents being very
useful to the society, stressing that despite its excesses, social media had
contributed to entrenching democracy, especially in most African countries,
through monitoring of elections as well as serving as a major source of diverse
information in the world over and therefore for Ghana to ban social media on
election day would not be too good.
“Many citizens and
stakeholders rely on social media to monitor elections, and this give them
confidence of knowing what is going on, therefore a ban of it will create
problems and jeopardise elections outcome,” Mr Ahiabenu II said.
Dr Esther
Ofei-Aboagye, Vice-Chair of the National Development Planning Commission, who
chaired the function said “We shouldn’t move away from social media but we
should use it to promote governance and accountability, especially in this
election year.”
ITRealms noted that the Social
Accountability forum, attended by various stakeholders including heads of civil
society organisations, state actors on the social accountability front as well
as donor organisations, created synergy and avenue for information sharing
while building a concerted advocacy drive to ensure resources allocated for
development are used to alleviate poverty and improve the standard of living of
citizens at the grassroots.
The overall goal of
the platform was to increase the contribution of civil society in promoting
accountability and effective public service delivery.
The Social
Accountability forum forms part of the implementation of the Penplusbytes’
two-year "Tech Driven Social Accountability for Results" project
which is being funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.
It seeks to equip
ordinary citizens with usable information via online platforms mashed-up with
social media and mobile based platforms to promote their purposeful
participation in demanding accountability and responsiveness from decision
makers for effective public service delivery.
Nenye Dom/GNA/GEE
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