The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has appealed to President John Dramani Mahama to clarify the rationale for the removal of the Ministry of Information from his government portfolios and enlighten them on the budget-holding Ministry for the state-owned media.
They include the Ghana News Agency and Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. “We observed that whilst the First Mahama Administration saw the merger of Communication and Information Ministries, the Second Mahama Administration appears to completely dissolve the Ministry of Information. We are appealing for clarity on this new policy direction,” Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfour, the GJA President said at a news conference in Accra on Wednesday.
Although the nomination of a Minister of State for Government Communication might be instructive, he said the Association also wished to know if the Government had any plans of continuing with the Media Development programmes of the previous government, including the ‘Media Capacity Enhancement Programme’ and the ‘Coordinated Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists’.
Speaking on attacks on journalists, Mr Dwumour said the phenomenon had been a major drawback to Ghana’s World Press Freedom Index in recent years.
“We are poised to reset this narrative. We shall continue to defend media freedom, and, in so doing, we shall not tolerate attacks against media practitioners. We call on all stakeholders, including the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, as well as civil society organizations, to help address this unfortunate situation. More specifically, we urge the Ghana Police Service to act swiftly in arresting perpetrators of such crime and prosecute them accordingly,” he said. The Association, he said received last week the disturbing news of barbaric attack on Ohemeng Tawiah of the Multimedia Group Limited. He was brutally attacked by a mob of illegal small scale miners operating in the Offin Shelter Belt Forest Reserve.
Ohemeng Tawiah, who was leading a Joy News Team to cover a police operation to clamp down on the activities of the illegal miners, was nearly killed by the mob and an excerpt of the report on the attack published on Myjoyonline read: “He sustained head and chest injuries, twisted fingers, and multiple cuts on his body after surviving a machete attack, in what appears to be an attempt to cut off his right leg”.
“Colleagues, this is what happened to a journalist working in the interest of the public and Mother Ghana; a journalist working to ensure that our land and natural resources are not devastated and dissipated; a journalist working to ensure that children are not born with deformities as a result of contamination of the environment with hazardous substances;
“This is what happened to a journalist working to ensure that we all don’t suffer health hazards from the activities of illegal small scale miners; and yet, we have all kept quiet on this matter,” Mr Dwumour bemoaned. In the matter of Ohemeng Tawiah and another outstanding barbaric case of assault involving Erastus Asare Donkor, also of the Multimedia Group Limited, he appealed to President Mahama to take a personal interest in them and ensure that the perpetrators were arrested, arraigned and punished for their crimes.
The GJA President reminded the President of the commitments he made to the media on July 7, 2024, at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel (then Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress) during his media engagement saying he was against the privatization of the state-owned media and assault of media practitioners, adding: “This is the time we expect the President to redeem his pledge. It is said that action speaks louder than words”. On the key activities of the GJA for 2025, Mr Dwumour said the Association shall hold its Annual General Meeting by the end of the first quarter of the year.
The Association has also tentatively scheduled to hold elections in June 2025 at the national and regional levels as the tenure of its current leadership was coming to an end. He said there would be elections also in the six newly created regions - Savannah, North East, Bono East, Ahafo, Western North and Oti and encouraged members in the regions to take active part in the electioneering.
The GJA would this year, also commemorate the World Press Freedom Day in the evening and use the occasion to honor distinguished individuals and institutions who had championed the cause of media freedom over the years, he said. “While showing appreciation to these champions of media freedom, we believe such recognition will also help raise many more workers in media freedom vineyard,” Mr Dwumour added.
Source: GNA
