The President of the Ghana Journalists Association, GJA Roland Affail Monney, has entreated media houses to intensify reportage on the upcoming District level elections and Referendum.
According to President Monney intensification of report on the two exercises is very crucial in view of the low turnout in past district level elections.
He observed that, “getting 40% of voters to turn out on the referendum day and at least 75% voting YES, as the law requires, is a huge task.”
To this end, he said the media should fully exercise their educative and informative mandate to get the electorate to understand the importance of the Referendum to guarantee full participation.
Mr. Monney said this at a News Editors Encounter in Accra which brought together selected news editors and managers to discuss how best the media can push the national agenda of achieving a successful referendum, slated for 17th December 2019.
The Encounter forms part of the GJA-STAR-Ghana Local Governance Project aimed at enhancing media and Civil Society Organisations, CSOs partnerships for inclusive local governance in Ghana.
In December this year Ghanaians will go to the polls to elect Assembly and Unit Committee members for the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.
They will also exercise their franchise in a referendum to either endorse or reject the proposal on the election of Chief Executives of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, MMDCEs.
The GJA President believed the media is equal to the task because, “the media has a lot of power and peddle a lot of influence to ensure massive turn out on the 17th December to vote in the referendum.”
He explained that the referendum will pave the way for constitutional amendment to Article 55(3) so that for the first time political parties will be allowed to take part and Ghanaians will be able to elect their own MMDCEs.
He challenged the editors to lead the agenda-setting role by ensuring that between now and December, stories related to the referendum are given prominence.
The Project Manager of the GJA-STAR-Ghana Local Governance Project, Kojo Impraim highlighted the vital roles of the media and impressed upon the news editors to help in saturating their airwaves and Newspaper pages with information on the referendum.
He narrated the successful implementation of the local governance project with the flagship, “We the people”, programme on GTV and other activities during the referendum on the creation of the new regions.
He said a lot more Ghanaians need information on the upcoming election and referendum in order to vote appropriately, hence the need for the media to scale up reportage.
He said the Project team has a faculty of local governance experts ready to offer expert advice and appear on programmes on radio and television and avail themselves for interviews for publications online and in the traditional newspapers.
Mr. Impraim explained that apart from using the traditional media to get the referendum messages across to the electorate the team is also deploying social media audio-visual messages targeting the youth and first time voters.
He stated that the GJA is considering organizing town hall meetings where experts will explain the processes and the importance of the referendum to the people.
The News editors present at the encounter pledged their support to GJA’s efforts at getting the citizenry to fully participate in the District level elections and the Referendum.
In attendance were members of the National Executive of the GJA.
Story by Dominic Hlordzi.
