The Deputy Minister of Information, Fatima Abubakar, has explained the reason why President Nana Akufo-Addo has stopped engaging the media.
She said due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conventional indoor meetings that were organised at the Jubilee House for the president to engage the media had to be put on hold.
“Before COVID, this was an annual event we were organising. I can assure you that we were even planning to organise one when COVID struck. It will be out of place to say that the kind of indoor meeting that involves everybody talking and a lot of conversations and dialogue take place within that space.
“So please, we cannot have that conversation without taking out the circumstances that led to the abrupt stop in the strategy of bringing the media to the banquet hall at the Jubilee House and organising such engagement,” she said on JoyNews’ Newsfile, Saturday, May 6.
The Deputy Minister further revealed that her outfit was putting in measures to change the narrative that the President was not engaging with the media.
She assured the Ghanaian populace that since the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, there was a possibility that there would be a change in the communication strategy within the presidency.
“The strategy may now change from direct broadcast by the President and engaging Ghanaians and other strategies we have used for communication within the highest office may change.”
Additionally, she highlighted that her outfit was seriously working on the broadcasting bill.
She disclosed that the bill had been drafted and taken to consultants and the Attorney General to look at it.
The Deputy Minister further added that the Ministry invited comments from 15 stakeholders, and some of them provided feedback.
The bill, according to her, has been sent back to their consultants.
“We have been working very hard, at least since 2021 to the best of my knowledge, to get it to a state where we are able to harmonise the regulatory framework, especially between NCA and NMC, and also to cover some of the grey areas that cause the problems that we have within the information sector,” Madam Abubakar stressed.