Nathaniel Nartey
The Ghana Journalists Association has denied allegations that the Media Capacity Enhancement Programme recently held in Kumasi was a ploy by the government to use journalists for its bidding. The week-long workshop was spearheaded by the Ministry of information with support from development partners, private sector, and civil society groups among others.
President of the GJA Roland Affail Monney in an interview with GBC News noted that it will be impossible to sway the minds of all journalists to do the bidding of the government, describing the allegations as baseless.
He said the allegations will only destroy the credibility of the profession and asked those involved to desist from it. Mr. Affail Money made the point while giving his assessment of the Workshop held in Kumasi Last week. He spoke to Nathaniel Nartey.
“The government only provided the financial oxygen, it’s unfortunate that some people took time to refract the whole training programme in partisan lenses. But one would think that they would have spared this very serious academic and professional exercise from such a twist and let me say that the allegations that the workshop was organized to enable the government bribe or compromise journalists is spurious to say the least”.
He went on to say that “We will plead for more of such funding so that the target of capacitating about 900 journalists will materialize”.
Mr. Monney used the opportunity to address some issues regarding the GJA elections which have been put on hold following a Court Order. He denied speculations that the injunction placed on the elections is to his personal benefit.
“I am bleeding profusely from the challenges that GJA is going through, these are all preventable challenges. It is sad that legal wranglings are beginning to become the norm and this should not be”.
On the allegations, Mr Monney said “these are some of the allegations that are rooted in fallacy and have no factual foundation.
This is not the time to find fault, this is the time to build bridges and move in one direction”.
He said ” The GJA brand is still solid, and it’s in the bracket of one of the best brand Associations in the whole wide world. For instance at the last World Press Freedom in Namibia last year only two countries were invited to speak for Africa that is Ghana and Somalia and the GJA spoke for Africa, it shows how high we are held as an Association “.