Media regulators, press freedom advocates and MPs have called for transparent rules and independent oversight of Ghana’s reactivated GH¢10 million Media Development Fund, warning that political interference could undermine its purpose.
President John Dramani Mahama allocated the GH¢10 million as seed funding in the 2027 budget on Saturday, November 7. The fund is intended to support journalists through welfare and safety initiatives, skills development, investigative reporting and digital literacy.
The announcement was made at the Ghana Journalists Association’s (GJA) 30th Media Awards. Mr Mahama also said he would seek corporate support from KGL and the Bank of Ghana, while cautioning journalists against pursuing scandals that do not exist.
Media executives and analysts welcomed the commitment during JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday, November 9, but said earlier funding efforts had been weakened by a lack of transparency and partisan pressure.
Calls for clear eligibility rules
Kwaku Krobea Asante, Programme Manager at the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), said the fund would need precise eligibility requirements, legal safeguards and a clear management structure to gain public confidence.
“We need to deal with the structures that are put in place, the government, the legal and governance safeguards, and the clear operational structures,” Mr Asante said.
He referred to state-backed media funds in France, Scandinavia, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger as examples of schemes that could inform Ghana’s approach.
Mr Asante also recalled that an earlier GH¢1 million allocation in 2013 was used to provide laptops to media houses, despite there being no publicly available selection or procurement rules. Questions from civil society about the process, he said, remained unanswered: “We don’t have answers to those questions.”
He added that partisan media organisations should not be eligible for public funding.
National Media Commission (NMC) Executive Secretary George Sarpong proposed linking grants to measurable and verifiable work. He suggested reviving a regulator index that assessed coverage of agriculture, maternal health and children’s welfare.
“In the past, at the National Media Commission, we developed a measure that we called the CMI (Credibility Measurement Index),” Mr Sarpong said.
“If we are going to give a grant to any media organisation, that media organisation itself must have systems that support accountability,” he added.
Mr Sarpong favoured a small committee capable of raising funds, rather than creating a large administrative structure. “We need to decide whether we want to create a bureaucracy around this fund. That won’t be my best suggestion,” he said.
Concerns over media sustainability
Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, the former Graphic Communications Group boss and a media manager, supported the use of a performance index. He proposed a team of “two or three people using technology” to administer the fund and said support should reward newsrooms reporting on national development.
“We need to find a way in which we separate the charlatans who are just pretending to be media practitioners from those who are actually doing the media job,” Dr Ashigbey said.
He warned that neither the fund nor proposed legislation on journalists’ welfare and working conditions would solve the financial problems facing newsrooms on its own. He also criticised the issuing of broadcast licences, saying: “The issues where we are issuing out TV licences like Confetti are things that we need to deal with.”
Dr Ashigbey said digital platforms were taking advertising revenue from traditional media and encouraging “what I call PR journalism”. He argued that citizens needed to demand sustainable funding for the Fourth Estate.
“The politicians would not want independent media to thrive. They both, the NDC and NPP, would not want it to thrive,” he said.
MPs welcome proposal
Bunkpurugu MP Dr Abednego Lamangin Bandim said the proposal had received support from both sides of Parliament, pointing to the President’s background as a journalist and GJA member.
“I can certainly say that there is a conversation ongoing immediately the President announced this GH¢10 million as seed money for the fund, and both sides of Parliament – what I hear is that, yes, it is a good thing.”
“We have waited for it for a very long time,” Dr Bandim said, adding that MPs were awaiting a Private Member’s Bill.
