KOH KONG: The Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Interior have jointly decided to establish a spokesperson and provide training to be able to disseminate information from the ministries widely.

On the occasion of the workshop on "Office of Information Intelligence and Good Governance in the Information Sector" organized by the Spokesperson of the Royal Government on Tuesday morning in Koh Kong Province, the Minister of Information, Khieu Kanharith, stated that the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Interior have jointly decided to establish a spokesperson and provide training. This is because 10 years ago the director of the Department of Information was the ministry spokesperson but did not dare to meet with his provincial governor which made access to information incomplete.

Therefore, the ministries have made the decision to choose a spokesperson who is closest to the provincial governor, someone who knows the full story and is close to those who have the right to decide. The spokesperson must be smart and have good communication with all institutions, departments and units around the province, so that if the spokesperson cannot answer all the questions, they can forward the question on to the relevant professional officials for an answer. Therefore, the head of institutions at the sub-national level should have a spokesperson as an important barrier because the spokesperson or information officer works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which would allow the head of the unit to remember to answer the big and important big issues related to the work of his organization.

 The Minister added that the work of information is very important now because in the past, people would have to go looking for information, but now information is much easier to access. Anyone can use the internet and social media like Facebook, and anyone can broadcast information, so when someone publishes a story to 10 people, 5 out of 10 people are likely to believe it and pass it on to others.

The Ministry of Information has set out five main points regarding this decision: fast, unique, reliable, anywhere, anytime.