After being in office for one year, President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Mr Albert Kwabena Dwumfour has recounted achievements chalked by the Association.
On June 30th, Mr Albert Dwumfour was sworn in by a justice of the Court of Appeal, Justice George Kingsley Koomson to begin his three year journey as the GJA President.
Prior to his election, one of the key areas the GJA President touched on was the welfare of journalists.
He also observed that journalists were not paid well, therefore had a vision to ensure that journalists get what they deserve.
In addition to that, Mr Dwumfour also sought to ensure the development of media practitioners and the media in general.
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Recounting his achievements o Atinka TV’s morning show, Ghana Nie with Ama Gyenfa Ofosu Darkwa, Mr Dwumfour noted that when he assumed office, his team visited and paid courtesy calls on strategic key partners and stakeholders to re-introduce themselves to them, and present to them the GJA vision and mission and also seek support to uplift the face of the media.
That was also to rekindle their hope in the GJA and the media for their mandate of ensuring good governance, accountability and or democracy.
His team also had a three day intensive retreat to strategise, deliberate on the activities, programmes and how to uplift the media.
Under his tenure, the headquarters of the GJA which is the press centre has seen massive change of its look and feel.
In just a year, one of the greatest achievements of the GJA, he said, was the launch of the Journalists Support Fund which seeks to support journalists.
Mr Dwumfour who observed that there are a lot of cases of attacks on journalists that have not been addressed due to financial constraints, said the fund will go ahead to deal with those cases.
He explained that it will help with the legal support to fight for journalists who are attacked.
“One of the things we did to support the welfare of journalists is to launch the Journalists Support Fund. That will; help any journalist who is attacked in their line of duty by politicians, security personnel or others who feel they can just attack journalists and go scot free like it used to be in the past. And we also made sure that no one can gag journalists,” he said .
He said the GJA is also trying to engage a permanent legal practitioner who will be based at the Press Centre to deal with cases of assaults.
Aside from that, he observed that retirees, mostly veteran journalists, are struggling financially and need support.
Mr Dwumfour made it known the support of some of these retirees, pointing that the medical bills of some of them have been taken care of.
He also made it known that the activities of the GJA has become very visible both on traditional and social media and even internationally.
The GJA President also noted that one great achievement of the GJA is the winning of the bid to host the Third African Media Convention in Accra, Ghana in May 2024.
The African Media Convention is currently the largest gathering of media stakeholders and policymakers in the continent.
Ghana| Atinkaonline.com| Porcia Oforiwaa Ofori