Ministry builds capacity of journalists in financial reporting

The Financial Sector Division of the Ministry of Finance has organized a three-day capacity building workshop for journalists on “Financial Literacy Education in Ghana” at Winneba in the Central Region.

The workshop, which was attended by over 40 journalists from the southern sector of the country, was facilitated by Asamoah and Williams Consulting, which has been contracted by the Financial Sector Division of the Ministry of Finance to provide consulting services to support the design of a National Financial Education Campaign under the Ghana Financial Sector Development Project (GFSDP) sponsored by the World Bank Group.

The goal of the assignment is to design and implement targeted financial education campaigns to empower consumers and improve their knowledge of the financial system in order to build their capabilities in making sound financial decisions that promote and secure their financial interests.

It also seeks to empower these consumers with the requisite knowledge (literacy), attitudes, skills and behaviour to manage their resources, and to assist them understand select, and use financial services that fit their needs.

Topics covered during the three-day capacity building training workshop include financial sector cleanup and its emerging benefits, why Ghana needs financial literate citizens, regulatory efforts to ensure sanity thereby preventing collapse of financial institutions in future and steps being taken by regulators to protect depositors.

Mr Charles Yao Mawusi, Executive Director, Transmedia Network, in his presentation, noted that the training programme sought to equip selected journalists with the requisite skills to enable effective dissemination of the campaign’s key messages among the target audience.

He reiterated that the media as a gatekeeper of public knowledge and information had a key role in information dissemination and awareness raising in every country.

He noted that a similar capacity building training workshop would be organized for journalists in northern Ghana.

Mr Mawusi advised economics and financial journalists to be more responsible in their reportage on financial issues in order not to create unnecessary fear and panic in the financial market.

He urged owners and management of media houses in the country, as part of their cooporate social responsibility to create room on their networks for the financial education of the public.

This, he said, was necessary because when the citizenry were well informed on happenings in the financial sector, they would be able to make good decisions in terms of investments.

He also appealed to producers and presenters of the various media houses, especially the electronic media to always cross check the authenticity of financial organizations, which place advertisements on their networks, so that fake institutions would not be using their platforms to mislead the unsuspecting public.

Dr Godwin Ansah, the Head of Communications and External Affairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaking to the Ghana News Agency at the workshop, said the objective of the Commission was to regulate and promote the growth and development of an efficient, fair and transparent securities market in which investors and the integrity of the market were protected.

He expressed the hope that SEC would continue to work closely with stakeholders like the media to ensure that investors were protected and that the integrity of the market was also protected.

He underscored the need for the media to have better understanding of the Securities Market and other components of the financial market, so that their reports would not be focused on sensationalism but on facts.

He further urged the media to always ensure that the right information was channelled to the various stakeholders, especially the investing public to help them make informed investment decisions; saying “ultimately we believe that a well informed investor is a well protected investor.”

He said the SEC looked forward to the role of the Financial Literacy Education campaign in Ghana, and that they believed that it would go a long way in helping strengthen the nation as a whole.

Mr Yaw Gyamfi, Executive Director, Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network (GHAMFIN), cautioned Ghanaians against ponzi schemes, which promised investors a doubling of their returns within a few months of investments.