Evaluation Of The Services Of The Trade Information/ Documentation Centre (Tidc) Of The Ghana Export Promotion Council (Gepc)

INTRODUCTION All classes of people need information to be able to perform effectively. Government officials, businessmen, students and researchers need accurate information for better performance of their activities. The type of information required will, however, depend on the needs of the individual. Perhaps a technologist or scientist may require more data than the ordinary technician, but in the solution of day-to-day problems, all group needs are equally important and information workers cannot draw a hard and fast line between the needs of one group and the other. Talking about the importance of information, William Katz says this about the American Congress. "The smartest opinion changers on Capitol Hill today are the ones who know the facts of an issue, and how it will affect a Congressman's own district.......... Information is power, and it has become far more efficient to change a member's outlook than twist his arm."1 In the light of the above, it is fairly safe to say that documentation has become essential to efficient communication of factual knowledge by means of graphic records in many fields, including international trade. This is crucial in the field of international trade, where accurate, reliable and up-to-date information is needed by both governments and businessmen to plan their trade strategies to make maximum profit. To enable documentation and information centres achieve optimum results in this area of comrrmnication, it is important to assess their utility, demonstrate their accomplishment and above all justify the reason for which they were established. There is thus, the need to monitor the progress of these information/ documentation centres and to evaluate the effectiveness of the services they provide. In Ghana, it has been the aim of various governments since independence to diversify our exports in order to earn more foreign exchange to improve the balance of payment position. To help achieve this aim the Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC) was established by a Government statute in 19&9 to organize the exportation of nontraditional exports. To enable the GEPC achieve this aim more effectively the Trade Information/Documentation Centre (TIDC) was established within the GEPC in 1979, to provide current and reliable information to the export community to help them improve upon their export performance. The TIDC has been in operation for six years now and it is appropriate that the centre is subjected to a critical examination in order to determine the effectiveness of its contribution to the development of the export trade in the country. 0.1 Operational definitions To give a better appreciation of certain terms used in the context of this work, it is ne