Akwa Ibom, USAID State2State Activity Move to Validate SOP for IOs

Okon Bassey in Uyo

The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity and the Akwa Ibom State Government have agreed to validate a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the State Ministry of Information.

The move to validate the SOP was as the result of an earlier workshop for the formulation of SOP by Information Officers (IOs), journalists and other officers drawn from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the State.

At the conclusion of the two-day exercise in Uyo, the State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Ini Ememobong, said the actual practice of the tenets of the SOP by IOs, remained crucial to the achievement of the objectives of the programme.

Ememobong, who appealed against the abuse of the SOP by the IOs also said the mindset of the IOs remained key to the effectiveness of the approaches adopted for the actualisation of the SOP.

The Commissioner said the ministry adopted and upgraded its information policy and also upgraded the status of the IOs to Information and Public Relations Officers in order to expand their capacity and roles.

He called on participants to ensure that the SOP would reflect the long-term focus of government in order to accommodate political and regime changes, adding that the ministry has begun to digitalise it’s archives in order to make access to information and processing easier for IOs.

He assured USAID State2State Activity of his commitment towards the implementation of the SOP but called for a thorough and detailed scrutiny of the document so that it would be able to stand the test of time.

Team Lead of State2State Activity in Akwa Ibom, Borve Paage-Imabel, commended the State government for their interest in the preparation and validation of the SOP and expressed satisfaction that the document was prepared with active involvement of all stakeholders.

Paage-Imabel, said the document was not an imposition on the state government since leadership was also part of the process, calling on them to take ownership of the document.

The State Team Lead said the document would also address career growth and relevance of IOs and commended the state government for making the ARISE agenda a reference point for governance in the South South region of the country.

USAID State2State Activity Communication Specialist and anchor of the programme, Nneka Acholonu-Egbuna, said the present cycle of the SOP programme would end in 2025 and was meant to improve on the productivity of IOs in the State.