Justice Yeboah swearing in the new executives
RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT of the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA), Roland Affail Monney, has been sworn into office alongside other newly-elected executives of the Association.
The executives were sworn into office by a Justice of the High Court, Justice Anthony Yeboah, on Friday, November 17, 2017 in Accra.
The other executives were Mary Mensah, Public Affairs; Organising Secretary, Albert Tuffour; Vice President, Linda Asante Agyei; General Secretary, Edmund Kofi Yeboah and treasurer of the association.
Mr Affail Monney won his second term bid in September this year after he polled 310 out of a total of 505 votes in an election that was largely characterised by acrimony and suspicions of possible vote raking.
His closest contender, Llyod Evans, who was disqualified initially from the race alongside other aspirants on grounds that they were not in good standings as members of the GJA, resulting into legal battles and arbitration, managed only 147 votes, crashing his hope of becoming president of the association.
The third candidate for the presidential slot, Jonny Aryeetey, performed abysmally, polling just 44 votes.
In his inaugural speech largely embellished with jargons, Mr Affail Monney observed that the elections were highly contentious and acrimonious.
According to him, insults and personality attacks marred what otherwise should have been a peaceful electoral process.
But in spite of the attacks and insults, he said the Lord was on his (Affail Monney’s) side and that his victory was the doing of the Lord and not such things as rhetoric, thanking all those who helped him in one way or the other during the electioneering period.
On the vision of the new executives for the association, he said their main focus would be, among other things, to re-organise the various chapters under the GJA, push for journalists’ welfare and review the association’s ethics.
He lamented that in spite of the enormous contributions of journalists to nation building, they, to a large extent, remain poorly paid in the country.
“Journalists are not paid the equilibrium wage,” he stated, adding that at worst case scenarios some journalists are not paid at all.
Thus, he promised to work hard together with the other executives to stem the tide.
“I pledge to offer sacrificial leadership and utmost humility,” he said.
Information Minister Mustapha Hamid, in a speech on the occasion which coincided with the outdooring of GJA Awards Committee, urged the new executives to truly champion the cause of journalists’ well-being.
“GJA must begin to bite so that media owners understand that they are in business and must be able to pay their workers,” he mentioned.
He was of the view that the days when media houses were established purely for social good have passed and that today media entities are being set up with business motives and, thus, their owners should be made to pay the people (journalists) they use to make their moneys, saying that GJA should ensure that media owners don’t take people for granted.
The chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC) who chaired the function called for unity among members of the association, saying, “We need to make unity the purpose of our association.”
In attendance at the ceremony were veteran journalists, notable among them being the News Editor of DAILY GUIDE, Alhaji Raman Gomda, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., Ajoa Yeboah Afari, and Deputy Minister of Works and Housing, Freda Prempeh, a longstanding member of the GJA.
BY Melvin Tarlue