B/A Minister Commends Media

Space FM,Sunyani - The Brong- Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr. Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has commended the media for marketing the region through their reportage in the past year, noting that there were indications that people outside the region, both within the country and beyond were kept abreast with the daily happenings in the region.

He gave the commendation at a Press Soiree organized by the Regional Coordinating Council at his residency.

Hon. Awuah took the media through the diary of 2007 as he reviewed significant socio-economic and developmental events that took place in the region. The minister enumerated the various developmental projects and programmes undertaken in the region from health, education, water and sanitation, roads and communication to energy.

In the area of local governance, Hon. Awuah was very happy that the region received three new districts namely Dormaa East, Nkoranza North and Sunyani West, which were carved out from Dormaa and Nkoranza Districts and Sunyani Municipality respectively.

This, he noted, would speed up development process in those areas.

Hon. Awuah disclosed that on average the NPP government has since its assumption of power constructed fifty schools per district in the region.

He was worried that the government put a lot into the education sector especially at the basic and senior high school levels in the region, yet the performance of students in the region did not commensurate the efforts being made.

He therefore urged the media to sensitize guardians and parents that learning does not only take place in school and that they should encourage their wards to be serious with their studies within and outside school premises.

Hon. Awuah entreated the media practitioners in the region to be circumspect in their reportage and utterances on air to avoid any unnecessary tension in the region before, during and after the December polls. The President of the Brong Ahafo branch of Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Mr. Charles Koomson urged journalists to discharge their duties diligently and professionally without fear or favour. “We are supposed to expose both bad and good things in the society”, he said, adding that journalists were not obliged to focus only on the speeches of political and departmental heads but should also investigate and expose what goes wrong.

“Forget about the insignificant favors you may get from a person in authority; you don’t have to submit yourself to the whims and caprices of anybody”, Mr. Koomson noted.

He however cautioned journalists against publishing and making inflammatory as well as derogatory remarks that could heighten tension or destabilize peace in the region.