JICA representative pays visit to Graphic

Spread Feb 23/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Ibrahim Awal, has called on the country’s development partners to devote a portion of their financial assistance to the country to the training of media personnel to make them more professional to safeguard the country’s democracy.
He said the role of the media in sustaining and building on the democratic principles in the country cannot be overemphasised and noted that a vibrant and well trained media, could serve as a major tool to safeguard the country’s fledging democracy.
Mr Awal who made the call when the Resident Representative of the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), Mr Kunihiro Yamauchi, paid a courtesy call on him at his office in Accra on Tuesday, said “the development partners are helping Ghana in many ways to consolidate its democracy but the media’s role is equally very crucial to sustain that democracy”.
Present at the meeting were Mr Naoki Yanase, Assistant Resident Representative, Ms Rabi Ali Abaari, Programme Officer, Training, Planning and Aid Co-ordination and Ms Makiko Kimura, Staff, NGO-JICA Japan Desk of all of JICA and from the GCGL were Mr Ransford Tetteh, Editor, Daily Graphic and Mr Albert Sam, Head of Public Affairs.
Mr Awal said the country had come a long way as far as sustaining its democracy was concerned and noted that “this has made Ghana an icon on the continent”.
He said without a vibrant media, that achievement which many development partners commend would elude the country and noted that constant training of all the media personnel would make them more responsible to be able to guard the process.
“Your efforts may come to naught if the media behaves unprofessionally and that sparks trouble in the country as in the case in many other African countries”, he said.
Mr Awal said GCGL on its own had instituted the governance dialogue programme held annually to bring people from all over the sub-region to discuss and deliberate on matters of democracy and how to build and sustain it.
He said in August this year, the third in the series of the dialogue would be held and called for collaboration to make it more successful than the previous two.
Mr Awal commended JICA for the many projects it had undertaken in the past and continued to undertake in the country as part of efforts to better the lives of the people saying “your work in the country was well noted and appreciated and we hope we can further collaborate in many areas in the interest of the people”.
Mr Yamauchi said Japan was to spend several millions of dollars in grants over the next three years to help build the country’s infrastructure particularly roads and public sector reforms among others.
He said there were other areas such as vocational education where Japan was already committing a lot of resources to help develop and mentioned the three northern regions as areas where activities of JICA were more focused.
Mr Yamauchi said Ghana has the largest number of Japanese volunteers as compared to any country in the world.
“We have 101 volunteers with you and they are spread in many parts of the country and are coping with situation in which they find themselves”, he added.
He commended the GCGL for the role it was playing in selling news to every part of the country and pledged the commitment of JICA to work together with the company to further better the lives of the people.
Mr Yamauchi and his team were later conducted round the refurbished newsroom of the flagship paper of the company, Daily Graphic where they were shown round by the News Editor, Mr Sammy Okaitey.
They also visited the printing section and G-Park, a subsidiary of the GCGL which is into the printing of books, labels and other printing works.