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The Deparment of Information Studies at the University of Ghana has suggested to the Judgment Debt Commission to start thinking along the lines of fraudulent behaviour by institutions that come before it, to say records in respect to some cases cannot be retrieved. According to the department, people are trying to obliterate illegal transactions and those documents that found them incriminatory are either destroyed or removed. Prof. Harry Akosa, who represented the head of department at the commission yesterday said, �The department�s position is that, there may be chaos in the records system, but we must start thinking along the lines of fraudulent behaviours.� According to him, �Records are either wilfully destroyed or removed. People are trying to obliterate illegal transactions and because people are told by the commission that this department will appear in two weeks time, they get the records and if it�s incriminatory they will remove them.� �They will remove them before coming here. I wish that the commission can find a way of doing investigations before they invite them to appear. Once they come and nothing is happening to them, they come to say, oh give us time, we can�t see the records, and how big are public institutions?� He quizzed rhetorically. He added, �We suspect fraudulent behaviour, people are orchestrating intentional means of obliterating their tracks.� Prof. Akosa made this known to the Justice Yaw Apau�s commission when his outfit was subpoenaed to appear and brief the commission on how they train personnel to handle records keeping after the Public Records and Archival Administration Department (PRAAD) had earlier told the commission of its poor state. He suggested to government to institute a records policy for the country and also entreat public institutions to see personnel of records keeping as very important in their institutions. He also told the commission that the attitude of public officers using their private email addresses instead of doing business with official email account is dangerous and that the moment such officers are out of post they move along with it creating gaps in government business. �One thing we have observed now is that, public officers are not using official emails, they are using their personal emails to transact government business, and those emails are personal to them. They leave office and they move with that account, so there is a gap in government records, so if we don�t look at that aspect very quickly, we will not have heritage for tomorrow.� He said the private institutions are more aware of the benefit of information and records management in particular than the public sector and that this lackadaisical attitude in the public sector must be ignored. Prof. Akosa also told the commission that public institutions do not really understand the importance of records management and therefore see them as outsiders. �The private sector is more aware of what records mean to them for accountability and they pay well for it, and have a good structure for it. Managers who are sent to the ministries to work are seen as outsiders, so until we start paying attention to the records managers and recognizing the values of what records could do in the administration of moving Ghana forward, I think we will be in trouble. On his part, Felix Nyarko Ampong who represented the chairman of PRAAD said they found it difficult to sit in management meetings with the government institutions to sensitize them on records keeping. He however assured the commission that they are doing everything possible to get the institutions on board to train them on the need to keep records, since it serves as evidence for proper accountability and future planning.