By Iddi Yire/Julius K. Satsi, GNA
Accra, Nov. 6, GNA - The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) on Thursday schooled some journalist on scrutinising political parties’ manifestos to prepare for the 2020 general elections and to interrogating public policies.
The training programme, which was held on the theme: “Building Media Capacity for News Coverage”, focused on political party manifestos, government policies and programmes, public opinion surveys and good governance indices and was supported by the Star Ghana Foundation.
More than 15 Journalists from both public and private media houses benefited from the two day workshop aimed at equipping the media to ensure efficiency in political parties’ manifestos.
Dr John Osae-Kwapong, Democracy and Development Fellow with the CDD-Ghana, who took the Journalists through ways of interrogating political manifestos and public policy, urged the Journalists to watch out for what was being promised, how it would be delivered, how much it would cost and what would be achieved through the implementation of such promises.
He said there was the need for Journalists to critically scrutinise the manifestos when they were being implemented and look out for what differences it made in the lives of citizens.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the side-lines of the workshop, Dr Osae-Kwapong said with the media training, it was expected that they will effectively inform the citizens.
With information, citizens would become more responsible to hold both the elected and appointed leaders accountable for the way they governed the country.
He said they were of the belief that such training programme strengthen the media to ensure that politicians did not just throw manifestos to the public, but were answerable to all components.
Dr Osae-Kwapong said the training programme was a pilot and that feedbacks from participants would be used to design a more comprehensive training for all media practitioners across the 16 regions of Ghana.
Asked on the timeliness of the training, he said, it was tailored to equip the media against the 2020 General Election, where a number of promises would be made to the citizenry.
GNA
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