Ahead ofthe Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) elections on Friday, a presidential hopeful, Mr Dave Agbenu, yesterday took his campaign trail to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) Head office in Accra.
Interacting with journalists of the agency, he reaffirmed that he was the best candidate to lead the inky fraternity and protect the welfare of its members across the country.
He highlighted the pillars of his campaign: unionisation; transformation of GJA into a viable organisation; empowerment of regional captures, training and protection of journalists.
MrAgbenu, who is the Editor of the Ghanaian Times with nearly three decades of experience in journalism, said, as the only practitioner amongst the three contestants, he has a better perspective of the challenges of journalists.
That, he said, placed him in a better position to fashion out solutions to them.
For instance, he said, the completion of the unionisation process would enable the association to fight for better conditions of service and salaries for journalists in the country.
He expressed worry when it comes to remuneration some journalists received as low as GH¢100 per month while others were paid per the stories they get published.
To resolve the problem, he said, his administration would make GJA a union to enable it to negotiate with media owners for journalists to be paid acceptable, decent and better salaries.
Mr Agbenu promised to champion the promulgation of a private members bill to deter people from attacking journalists as the security of journalists was of utmost importance to him.
He said under his tenure, the association would make investments in profitable ventures that would inure to the benefit of their members and enable the body to reduce its dependence on other organisations.
In Friday’s elections which comes after two years of disputes, MrAgbenu who is number ‘one’ on the ballot is contesting with Gayheart Mensah, a media consultant and Albert Dwumfuor, Group Head for Corporate Affairs of the Tobinco Group of Companies.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR