Lloyd Evans Honoured For Contribution To Business Journalism.

The Editor of the Graphic Business, Mr Lloyd Evans, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions and pioneering role in business journalism.

Masoe Productions West Africa, which organised the awards in collaboration with the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) and the World Bank, named Mr Evans as the winner of the prestigious award for being among the beginners of that paradigm shift which institutionalised financial and economic news reporting.

Parts of a citation accompanying the award read; “Though there was no formal training scheme, you among other things, realised the need to learn the ropes by taking advantage of workshops and seminars for actors in the financial sector so you could write from the point of knowledge and not ignorance.”

The citation further recognised the role of Mr Evans in setting up IFEJ, a name synonymous with financial news reporting in the country, and also the Africa Economic Editors Forum.

“Every Finance Minister and Governor of the Bank of Ghana calls you by your first name because you have championed reportage in the area that is the focal point of their vocation,” the citation said congratulated Mr Evans for his immense contributions.

Receiving the award, Mr Evans thanked the organisers, the panel of judges and the business community for their immense support that enabled him to receive such an august recognition.

He donated the prize of US$1000 to IFEJ to help it in its training programmes, which he announced would be intensified in 2013.

Both the guest speaker, Mr Adu Anane Antwi, the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Capt Prince Kofi Amoabeng (retd), the Group Chief Executive of UT Bank, were unanimous in touting the role of the business and financial journalists and called for more capacity building for them to enhance their work.

While Capt Amoabeng said the expanding business environment required more such specialised journalism and called for continued support from stakeholders for that segment of journalists, Mr Antwi said building their capacity would enable them to play greater role in promoting corporate Ghana, the capital market activities and other sectors of the economy with quality reportage.

Capt Amoabeng called on business journalists to help wage a crusade for the country to implement the street/house naming project with all seriousness and urgency because it would aid governance, the delivery of financial services as well as dealings among each other in the country.

“To be governed, we need to have addresses. The way it is now, we can't find people and people can’t find us. We live in a country where policemen arrest drivers by ceilingthe keys and jumping behind the steering wheel because they know they can’t find the people,” he lamented.

Capt Amoabeng, who has been crusading for house/street naming for a long time, believes that with technology such as Google Maps, such an exercise should be possible in the foreseeable future.

For his part, Mr Antwi suggested to the government to offer more incentives and exemptions to bolster activities on the stock market.

He suggested some of the incentives as a provision to ensure that companies that were seeking to capitalise to raise a minimum of 25 per cent from the local market before they looked outside for top ups, adding that it should be possible to ask foreign companies that operated in the country to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange after the initial five years of operation.

The maiden Gold Awards for Business Journalists recognised the works of 14 journalists as well as media houses for their role in reporting business news

Staff Writer of the Graphic Business, Mr Samuel Doe Ablordeppey, was adjudged the overall Business Journalist, with prize money including a two-week training tour to Washington DC in the United States.

Other award winners are Mr Ekow Essabrah-Mensah of the Business and Financial Times, who picked two awards; the Investigative Reporter of the Year and the Mining, Oil and Gas Reporter of the Year, and Mr Kwaku Effah Amponsah of the Ghana Business and Finance Magazine, who also took home two awards; the SME Reporter of the Year and the Feature Writer of the Year.

The rest are Messrs Felix Dela Klutse, then of Ghana Business and Finance magazine, Pascal Kudiabor and Nana Amoto Mensah, who took home an award each.

TV3 won the TV Station of the Year for its business reportage, Citi FM won the Business Radio Station of the Year, the Business and Financial Times won the Business Newspaper of the Year with Business World won the Business Magazine of the Year.

The Event Coordinator and Director, Mr Elijah Kayode Iposu, thanked IFEJ and the World Bank for the collaboration as well as the sponsors; The State Housing Company, UT Bank, Newmont Ghana Gold, the Ghana Stock Exchange and HFC Bank for their immense support. GB