I will use social media to change the story of Upper East – Minister

The minister-designate for Upper East region, Paulina Abayage who has admitted to being a social media freak is counting on her experience in the new media to tell the positive stories of her region. “I use social media a lot,”, she told the Appointment Committee of Parliament during her vetting  on Monday. Remarking that social media “is a useful tool”, the former Ghana’s Ambassador to Italy said “I will use it to sell the region”. Paulina Abayage was responding to concerns from persons believed to come from her region that she failed to touch base with them since her nomination. The Member of Parliament from North Tongu Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who read out some of these concerns as addressed to the minister-designate on her Facebook wall, noted that people from the region appears to have issues with her inability to visit the region to assess their needs prior to her vetting. According to her, she does not need to be in the region to get the needed information to transform the place, noting that by the click of a button, one can get every required information. The former Ambassador did not shy away from her love for social media, stressing that it could be the game changer to the negative stories always being told about the three northern regions. Paulina Abayage was emphatic about the usefulness of social media networks, remarking, “avoid it at your own peril, misuse it at your own peril”. She did not however indicate how she would use social media to change the face of the Upper East region and its people. Nonetheless, she promised residents of the Upper East region that she “will hit the road running” if given approval. She promised that under her leadership, the region “would be on the world map for all the good reasons” by harnessing all resources especially the human resources to “change the narrative of the region”, thus getting people to appreciate the tradition, culture, food and the competence of people from there and all the good things one can think of. She recalled how she used social media to educate a number of people on diplomacy and other useful lessons. By Isaac Essel |editors.3news.com | Ghana