Media's support to AMA not enough - AMA Boss

Accra, Aug. 12, GNA - The media's appreciation and sensitivity to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly's (AMA) activities, ought to improve if more development needs to be achieved in Accra, Mr Stanley Adjiri Blankson, the Assembly's boss has said. He said the current partnership between the media and the AMA is not a healthy one citing media reportage in the past which he believed has tended to favour the AMA's clients, such as traders, business operators and hawkers. The city Mayor expressed the worry last weekend when officials from the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and the Kab Governance Consult, a consultant firm met the Assembly to discuss a survey report on fee-fixing by the assemblies in Ghana. The survey was part of a GJA project to support small and medium scale enterprises through media advocacy in-collaboration with Kab Consult and BUSAC Fund. "The AMA is there for journalist and our doors are always open to you because we consider you as partners to make the city of Accra a decent home first for inhabitants and then to tourists and visitors," Mr Adiri-Blankson said. "We need the media to propagate the ideas and work of the AMA," he said. On the proposed attempt to demolish newspaper stands on the streets of Accra, Mr Adjiri-Blankson said enough warning had gone out to carry out the exercise but said he would rely on the GJA to find a lasting solution. He said the way the newspaper stands have dotted the streets of Accra caused nuisance in the city. Mr Bright Blewu, General Secretary of the GJA assured the AMA boss that he would pursue the matter in collaboration with the Private Radio and Newspaper Association of Ghana (PRINPAG). He said the Assembly would be invited to one of the GJA Editors Forum meetings in order to deepen the relationship that existed between Assembly and the media. Mr Blewu said the GJA project on small scale businesses, which started in 2006, has achieved a lot by way of building the capacity of the media to appreciate and understand the need to support the small businesses which formed about 80 percent of the Ghana's manufacturing sector.

Mr Kwesi Afriyie-Badu, the Executive Director of Kab Consult gave an overview of the survey report and said of the eight assemblies sampled for the exercise, the AMA's performance in terms of consultation with stakeholders, gazetting and technical competence, was fairly impressive.

He, however, noted that the basis for fixing rates such as business operating permit by professionals and for small scale business operators in the Metropolis was questionable, since it raised issues of fairness and equity. Explaining the rationale for the survey, Mr Afriyie-Badu said the intention was to bring to the attention of the policy makers the need to for Assemblies to appreciate the critical role of the micro, small and medium businesses and how opening up to them could impact on revenues generation.