By Laudia Sawer
Tema, June 27, GNA – Mr. Suleiman Mustapha, a Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) National Organising Secretary Candidate, has stated that the association must make attacks on journalists an expensive venture.
Mr. Mustapha, engaging media practitioners in Tema, reiterated that attacks on journalists have become too many and the association needs to take concrete steps to deter people from engaging in such attacks.
He stated: “Let’s make attacks on journalists an expensive venture; in that case, the attacker can’t even get the victim to beg for leniency.”
He indicated that when voted for, he would push for a strong collaboration between the association and the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) to ensure the prosecution and bring to book such attackers of journalists.
“The GJA is a very credible and powerful association; it’s a matter of getting collaborations to stop the attacks,” he said.
Touching on other issues, he stated that the GJA is a welfare association; therefore, its programmes must seek the welfare of members both in active service and retirement.
According to him, to whip up the interest of practitioners in the activities of the association, the various branches and chapters must be more vibrant.
On unionisation, he noted that a lot of journalists are working and being paid salaries that cannot take care of them, stating that even when sick, they could not afford to take care of themselves.
He said apart from partnering with private health insurance for care, the association would also use the moral switching approach to encourage media house owners and their management to pay their workers well as a motivation to get them to give of their best.
Answering a question on unionisation, he said even though the process was started under the former GJA president, Mr. Affail Monney, it was yet to materialise.
Edited by Benjamin Mensah
GNA