Media must be architects of poverty eradication - says Zita

Accra, July 10, GNA - Journalists must be architects of poverty eradication and ignorance in the communities, Mrs Zita Saba Okaikoi, Minister of Information, said on Friday.

She said this could be achieved if the crux of media reportage in Ghana was development centred to help the country achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Mrs Okaikoi was speaking at the closing ceremony of a two-week workshop on Communication for Development organised for District Information Officers (DIO) of the Ministry of Information (MOI) who are responsible for the management of the contents of the Community Information Centres (CIC).

It was funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Other institutions that collaborated were the International Institute for Communication Development (IICD), Ministry of Communication, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

Mrs Okaikoi told participants to make good use of the CIC to provide reliable and timely information to the public to enable them to be well informed about development programmes going on in their respective localities for a better Ghana.

She said the ministry would adequately equip CICs with the necessary tools, skills and expertise to support the activities of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies as far as information management and dissemination were concerned.

Mrs Okaikoi said the socio-economic and the infrastructural development of Ghana should be the ultimate concern of all Ghanaians especially media practitioners.

She was hopeful that participants were well equipped to channel development information to the public to promote local government principles and good governance.

“Let us all continue to support this laudable programme in order to reduce poverty, alleviate hunger, disease and ignorance in our communities,” she noted.

Mr Cleaver Nyatti, Senior Government Advisor of the UNDP, said the expectation of the UNDP was to see Ghana achieve un-polarized information flow and help the country attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

He told participants to put the skills acquired to good national use, adding that, if that was done UNDP would continue to support Ghana.

Mr V.X.K. Senaya, Chief Director of the Ministry of Information, said the course upgraded the competencies of participants to deepen public consultation and grassroots participation in decision-making.

He said therefore that it would help participants to support local authorities to improve the lives of the communities they served.

Mr Edward Dawuni, the course prefect of the programme, pledged that they would justify their participation by ensuring that government policies were not only disseminated with the cinema vans but with the use of ICT skills they had just acquired.

“We have been delivered from the ICT deficiencies which might have been obstructing us from effective and efficient information dissemination,” he said.

GNA