Help people have informed opinions - Media urged

Odumase (B/A), April 17, GNA - Mr. Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, MP for Sunyani West, at the weekend urged media practitioners to focus on educating the people about government policies to enable them to have informed opinions to put forward constructive criticisms.

He noted that what some media practitioners, especially radio presenters, were doing could not help to advance national progress and expressed regrets that some of them were not very informed about national and local issues.

Mr. Adjei-Darko, who was speaking at the closing of an Easter Convention of the Sunyani Baptist Association of the Ghana Baptist Church at Odumase, near Sunyani urged Christians to be in the fore front of helping to change the people's perceptions about governance, which he said was a collective duty for Ghanaians.

The MP stressed that what the media needs to do now was to galvanise Ghanaians to work harder to support the government to implement policies to alleviate poverty and disenchantment among the people.

"Ghanaians like doing more talking than work and it is time we abandon all unproductive criticisms and always looking for the mistakes of others and commenting the whole day, whilst others will bee listening the whole day", he said.

Mr. Adjei-Darko said that such attitude was not the best for the country's development and prosperity for Ghanaians, irrespective of their tribal, ethnic or political affiliation.

Mr. Adjei-Darko cited the instance of an FM radio station presenter whose comments about the avian bird flu had deterred consumers from patronising poultry products, which had seriously affected both the maize and poultry industries.

"There is now a glut of maize and this situation is affecting all of us and will inadvertently lead most of us into poverty because the farmers' produce cannot be bought by the poultry farmer whose products are also not being patronised," Mr. Adjei-Darko explained.

Commenting on the millennium challenge account under which Ghana would receive a grant of 500 million dollars by the end of July this year for agricultural development, the MP stressed that media practitioners should prepare the minds of interested Ghanaians to go into the sector to improve their living standards.

He noted with regret that continued undisciplined acts in communities, environmental degradation, diseases and the "craze" for expensive funerals had led many Ghanaians into poverty.

Such behaviours are perpetrated at the expense of the education of children, who are eventually pushed onto the streets to earn a living, he said, adding that the people should stop such careless and negative traits and prioritise their needs.