Journalists schooled on communicating economic freedom

A workshop on communicating economic freedom has ended at the Anita hotel at Ejisu in the Ashanti Region drawing together forty (40) journalists from different media houses across the country.

The workshop was organized by Africa Youth Peace Call (AYPC), a non-governmental organization in Ghana on Saturday 29th August, 2015.

Addressing the journalists present at the workshop, Mr. Afrikanus Kofi Akosah, the President of AYPC, said that countries ranked higher on the index of economic freedom have higher GDP and higher standard of living. He added that Ghana was ranked 66 on the index on economic freedom in 2014 but dropped to 71 in the year 2015.

This is a worrying trend since it indicates that our government and the people of Ghana can’t decide on how to produce, sell or use their resources without the inferences of external bodies.

Economic freedom is the freedom to choose how to produce, sell, and use your own resources, while respecting others' rights to do the same.

Speaking via satelite on the index of economic freedom, Prof. Ken Schoolland asserted that lessons must be taken from the New Zealand economic success story where they ended subsidies, cut down government spendings, privatized their rails and ports, opened trade and ended currency control some years ago. He said due to this, New Zealand is currently ranked 3rd on the index of economic freedom 2015 published by the Heritage foundation and they are ahead of all European and north American nations coming behind Hong Kong and Singapore only.

Mr. Dan Mclaughlin, AYPC Board member, speaking in defense of global free trade affirmed that countries don’t necessarily have to produce all that they need, that’s why there is the need for global free trade. He added that international trading by African nations constitute about only 9% of that of European countries.

Executive Director of Citizen Network for Development and Democracy, Mr. Kwadwo Afari stated that the people should be able to decide what they need and from where. If foreign goods are more cheaper and better, we shouldn’t consider the interest of the few people in the local industries within the country and prevent the rest of the population from getting cheaper and better goods and services.

The Policy Analyst argued that it wont kill local industries but would rather bring about innovation on the part of these local industries to be able to keep their products in the market.

Mr. Japheth Joshua Omojuwa from Nigeria, a blogger, international public speaker and social media expert advised journalists to make good use of the social media in order to raise their standards. "You can’t get 5000 people in a room at a time to speak to them but social media provides the opportunity to communicate with that 5000 people at a time.’’ he added.

The president of AYPC said plans are in place to institute an awards scheme for journalists who will write about economic freedom in the country.