The Upper West Regional Executives of the Ghana Journalists Association(GJA) have been sworn into office on July 8, 2022, in Wa.
The swearing in ceremony was presided over by a High Court judge at the Regional Coordinating Council.
All the three executives were retained to serve another 4-year term in office.
Mr. Swalah Abdul -Wahab is the GJA Chairman assisted by Mr. Seidu Bhomanjo both from Ghana Broadcasting Corporation(GBC) whilst Mr. Prosper Kuosah of the Ghana News Agency(GNA) as the Secretary.
Speaking at the event, the Regional Minister, Dr. Hafiz Bin Salih, charged the leadership to embark on capacity building for members and non-members alike to enable them practice well in line with the ethics of the profession.
According to him, training the non-GJA members is equally essential since journalists that are not part of the association in the region far outnumber those of the GJA. In addition, he observed that journalists who often churn out poor ethical journalistic work are usually those not under the association.
He charged members of the association to co-operate and offer the leadership the needed support to succeed.
While calling on journalists in the region to be fair, firm and objective in their work, he assured the GJA of his readiness to assist them in the discharge of their work.
“I want to assure you as well as all members of the association that I’m ever ready to associate, to assist and co-operate with you because you are key stakeholders in the development of our region,” the soft-spoken minister stated.
Touching on government ‘s ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dr. Hafiz explained that:
“Let me use this opportunity to assure all assembled here that the government of his Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will provide that exceptional leadership needed to solve the mirage of challenges confronting our country as of now. As you are aware, we have initiated discussions with authorities of the International Monetary Fund(IMF), I want to assure all and sundry that, once we enroll on into the IMF programme, it’s just going to be for a short while because we know what we are about (as a government).”
“What we seek to do is to help repair public finances. Once the issue is stabilized, we’ll certainly go out of the programme. We have done it before, with HIPC, we enrolled on to the programme and we were able to take the country out of HIPC, it’s the same with this IMF programme. We’ll definitely ensure that we do things right so that in the shortest possible time, we get out of it.”
He gave the assurance of the continuation of government’s social interventions amid the economic crisis that is biting hard the various sectors of the Ghanaian economy.
Source: Sungmaale FM