Regional Coordinator Elections held for the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions

The Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association on Friday, 16th March 2018 met to elect Regional Coordinators and Deputy Regional Coordinators to help steer the affairs of the Association. The President stated that this was important as the Executive Council had been inundated with several issues since they took office, especially with the volume of work and numerous challenges facing the industry. He informed the meeting that elections had already been held for 6 regions, thus the meeting was being held primarily to elect Regional Coordinators for the Ashanti region and the Brong Ahafo region as well as discuss issues pertaining to the industry and that were affecting the efficiency of the Association. He further stated that it was important for Members to understand the role of the Association and what the media stands for.

Nominations were opened for the positions of Regional Coordinator and Deputy Regional Coordinator for Brong Ahafo regional Members. Pius Kwasi Anokye(Gifts FM) was nominated for the position of Regional Coordinator and Boniface Dapaah (Kiss FM) for the position of Deputy Regional Coordinator. In stating his conviction for the ability to carry out the responsibility, Pius Anokye stated that he was in contact with most of the GIBA Members in the region and knew their various locations, thus could easily reach them. He promised putting in his best to ensure that GIBA Members in the region are united to help strengthen the Association. Boniface Dapaah also pledged to actively support the Regional Coordinator when he is given the nod, to ensure unity and active participation of GIBA Members in the region to help GIBA achieve its objectives. Both candidates were unanimously acclaimed and duly elected for the positions of Regional Coordinator and Deputy Regional Coordinator.

The meeting was subsequently informed that nominations had been received from the Ashanti region for both the Regional Coordinator and Deputy Regional Coordinator. The Regional Coordinator nominee, Ebenezer Sarpong Mantey (Otec FM), stated that he realized there was a lot of work to be done for GIBA in the Ashanti region. He assured the meeting that once given the approval, he would do his best to bring the Ashanti regional GIBA Members together. The Regional Coordinator nominee was unanimously acclaimed while the Deputy Regional Coordinator nominee Frederick Nana Fianko (Boss FM) had majority votes.

The elected Regional Coordinators for the 2 regions both thanked the meeting for the opportunity given to serve the Association. They were subsequently sworn into office.

Going on further, the meeting was sensitized about the responsibilities of their organisations to regulatory bodies. They were informed that the regulatory bodies were aware of the strength of the Association so would try to deal with individual organisations when given the chance. Members were therefore encouraged to value their Association and to cooperate with the Executive Council and the GIBA Secretariat and to live up to their responsibilities towards the Association to enable them be effective in serving their interests. It was stated that GIBA could be bigger if all came together as one and understood that there was strength in unity. It was stressed that the media was a powerful industry as any information that needed to get into the public domain was done by the media.