Media urged to be interested in world trade issues

Kumasi, Jan. 25, GNA - Mr. Samuel Kangah, General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has called on the media to be more interested in world trade issues and articulate them for the benefit of the country. He said the Ghanaian media, which had helped to nurture and sustain democracy in the country, was capable of rallying farmers, rural workers and other like-minded individuals and organisations, to rise up against the unjustifiable concept of liberalised trade with unequal partners.

Mr. Kangah made the call at the opening of a one-week training of trainer's workshop on global food trade in Kumasi on Tuesday. The workshop, which is being organised by GAWU in collaboration with the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) fund, is aimed at training farmers and other farm activists on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its implications on their livelihoods. It is also to provide self-employed rural workers an understanding of the operations of the global trading environment, especially on food trade and its associated economic implications for the rural worker in Ghana.

Fifty participants from Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions are attending the workshop.

Mr Kangah said GAWU had transcended its role to include advocacy work on issues at the national and international levels that strongly undermine the very interest of the people it represented. He said the advocacy on international affairs was as a result of the gruelling impacts of the policies of international organisations that had power beyond governments.

Mr Kangah said there was real and absolute power in the hands of the people who were affected and they could use it appropriately if they got to know where their troubles were coming from and how. He appealed to the participants to take the workshop seriously to enable them to educate and organise farmers and self-employed rural workers to take their destiny into their hands and support GAWU and other like-minded organisations to fight for their rights. Alhaji Mohammed Sandu, Ashanti Regional Secretary of the TUC, commended GAWU for initiating the project to empower farmers and rural workers to enable them to fight for their rights.

He advised the participants to make good use of the workshop to enable them to educate the farmers in their various communities.