The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has attributed Ghana’s recent poor performance on the World Press Freedom Index to the disregard of alerts issued by the foundation.
According to the Executive Director of MFWA, Sulemana Braimah, in the wake of the numerous instances of press suppresses in the country, the foundation issued alerts condemning such acts and in addition, stated the repercussions it can have on Ghana’s Press Freedom Index.
Mr. Sulemanah Braimah in a Facebook post explained that an alert, dated July 2, 2019, was ignored by the relevant stakeholders in Ghana’s media landscape. To add insult to injury, Mr. Braimah indicated that a barrage of insults was hurled at the foundation as a result of the alert.
Given this, the continual drop in Ghana’s press freedom index comes as no surprise to the foundation since the relevant stakeholders have disregarded cautions seeking to avert the situation.
“On July 2, 2019, the MFWA issued an alert about deteriorating press freedom conditions in Ghana. We were ignored and even insulted by some people. Well, the 2020 ranking is out. Ghana drops to 30th from 27th in 2019 and 23rd in 2018. Ghana’s 2020 ranking is the lowest since 2013,” Sulemana Braimah wrote.
He added “one of the things we are proud of as a country is our respect for democratic values including press freedom. Let’s protect media freedom. Let’s respect the rights of journalists. Let’s stop abusing journalists. Let’s investigate and punish those who abuse journalists.”
