The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo, has tasked management and staff of New Times Corporation (NTC) to sustain the industrial harmony to move the corporation forward.
He asked the workers’ union to support the decisions of the management while urging the board and management to take interest in the remittances of workers such as social security payments and related matters to avoid tension.
“It is only when you work as a team that you can move forward,” he said, at the inauguration of a nine-member board for the corporation, the publisher of the Ghanaian Times and The Spectator, in Accra yesterday.
The board is chaired by Dr Kweku Rockson, a communication consultant and former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism.
Other members include Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service and an associate professor in communication; Mr Samuel Sarfo, Head of Human Resource and Administration of Rock City Hotel; and Victoria Natsu, the immediate past Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence Management Boards.
The rest are Donald Gwira, a Public Relations practitioner;Doris Kuwornu, a journalist and Vice President of the Ghana Association of Writers; Kofi Marrah, a writer and former Executive Secretary of the National African Peer Review Mechanism; Professor Kofi Quarshigah, a professor at the University Of Ghana School of Law; and Managing Director of the NTC, Martin Adu-Owusu.
Mr Ayeboafo said constituents of the corporation should make suggestions towards the growth of the corporation instead of waiting for leadership to fail so they could criticise them.
He urged the workers’ union and management to use due processes and dialogue to resolve grievances, noting that both sides had equal rights and must respect the rule of law for mutual benefit.
Mr Ayeboafo advised the NTC to continue publishing credible news to protect its integrity and support the new board to keep the corporation afloat, having survived the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He urged NTC to distinguish itself in the media space “so that when tomorrow we are writing the history of Ghana, the part played by the NTC would not be an appendix but part of the main structure and there will be a chapter reference for NTC and its useful contribution.”
The NMC Executive Secretary, George Sarpong, said in the age of misinformation, society could only rely on the work of credible media houses like the NTC to discover the truth.
The immediate-past board chairperson, Very Reverend Mrs AmaAfo-Blay, expressed gratitude to members of her board for helping the corporation to survive turbulent times.
She charged the new board to improve the auditing area of the corporation and continue efforts to acquire a new offset machine and urged the workers to put in their best.
Dr Rockson, describing the task as an onerous responsibility that the board would not take lightly, said the board would soldier on to address the challenges facing the corporation.
That, he said, they would do through stakeholder engagement, plugging of revenue loopholes, beefing up human resource of the corporation, enhancing editorial work and looking for additional sources of revenue.
“The future is really bright. Let us work together. Let us create and share. If we do not create, we cannot share. All of us have to make sure that we work hard in that direction. Every unit, everybody has a role to play as far as the future is concerned”, he said.
Mr Adu-Owusu thanked the old board for its contributions towards the sustainability of the corporation, including plugging revenue loopholes and expressed his desire to collaborate with the new board towards addressing the challenges being faced by the corporation.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
