Ghanaian media highly saturated – Mahama

President John Dramani has touted press freedom in Ghana indicating that the country has so many media outlets it can be described as “one of the most saturated with radio stations and other media in the world”.

He noted that the 1992 constitution did not place undue restrictions on media operations and after the establishment of the first private radio station in the ’90s, “the country has never looked back”.

Mr Mahama disclosed this while addressing dignitaries across the globe at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conference in Paris on September 26.

While speaking on the role of access to information in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), he noted that the country had hundreds of media organisations.

Even though he indicated that the proliferation of media was positive towards dissemination of information and education of the public, he highlighted several challenges of the industry.

According to him, “a lot of the journalists lack training” so capacity building and development is key to improving the sector.

He also noted that “a lot of the stations still use rudimentary equipment so they do not have clear sounds” but the country was migrating to digital broadcasting.

He lamented the “overconcentration on politics” to the detriment of “all other things like climate change, culture, women’s empowerment”.

Any public officer who can survive from 6am to 10am can survive the rest of the period during working hours because “the country has 27 million presidents who think they know the job better”, Mr Mahama added