A workshop was held at the Assembly’s conference room in order to equip officers with the appropriate way to manage records at the various departments within the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly. Present at the meeting were Records, Executive officers and middle level management staff from the various Departments of the Assembly.
Municipal Coordinating Director, Emmanuel Gyan, made remarks about the purpose of the training. He noted that from various monitoring exercises, it has been discovered that most of the Departments have problems with record management which makes it difficult to retrieve files when in time of need. he said most of these capacity building programmes are usually done for the other officers leaving the records and executives officers behinds, due to this it is now time to build their capacities in order to
work efficiently and effectively. He called on participants to take full advantage of the situation and contribute freely to the discussions. He said the training is being held as part of the Assembly’s capacity building plan for the year with the aim of improving urban management and basic urban services in the whole of the Municipality.
The Municipal Chief Executive, Dr. Isaac Dasmani PhD also made brief remarks. He welcomed the officers present and thanked them for coming. He said it was a great privilege for the officers to be chosen for the training noting that there are a number of officers who may have wish to be part but were not invited due to limited resources. The Chief Executive noted that, majority of the officer present one way or the other deals with records management activities. He concluded by asking the participants to take the training seriously and practicing the new knowledge that will be acquired from the training in other to improve upon the record management activities as well as to build their capacity.
Mr. Nicolas Kwofie who is from the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) led the presentation by explaining to the participants what record management is. He defined it as the act
of caring for records to ensure that they are protected for both administrative purposes as well as to serve as evidence of the organization’s work. He also explained the aim of records management which is to ensuring that the right information is made available to the right person, at the right time, and at the least possible costHe also talked about the record management process and named them as: Records Capture, Registration, Classification and Indexing, Access and use, Tracking, Appraisal, Storage
preservation and Disposition. After, he explained The concept of records life cycle as the full span of a records existence from its creation to its ultimate disposal. The phases of the records life cycle basically have three main phases and these are: the current phase; the semi-current or semi-active phase; and the non-current or inactive phase
The facilitator again explained to the participants what a registry is and its functions. He explained a registry as unit of an agency, institution or organisation responsible for the creation, control, maintenance and movement of current files/records and/or semi-current records. The functions of a registry are to receive, record and distribute Incoming mail, to open, index, classify and control current files, to control, trace and deliver files, to record and dispatch outgoing mail, to review, transfer and
retrieve Semi-current files/records. He then talked about the classification and indexing system and he explained that It is the process of putting like things together. The process of classification in the context of Records Office work is to provide the means of filing and searching for and finding individual papers quickly and accurately.
The next presentation then followed. The resource person took the participants through filling, processing, protection and security of records. He explained filing as A file is an organized assembly of documents kept together for use, and relating to a specific subject, type of transaction or area of business. He also talked about file management, filing methods, misfiling as well as control systems. The resource person ended his presentation with a topic on security breaches. He explained what security is and some security precautions as well as security classifications.
It was highly participatory. Questions and answering sections were also done to test the knowledge of the participants as well as to clarify things to those who have concerns.
Participants unanimously agreed that the training was very useful but requested that a similar training be organized for all officers of the Assembly as well in other to broaden their knowledge. The MCD promised he will mobilize funds to extend the training to cover all the staff.