Beginning Thursday, November 24, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) will be organising a series of training workshops on Ghana’s Right to Information (RTI) Law for radio stations and citizens across the mining communities in Ghana.
The workshops form part of the MFWA’s project to empower citizens and the media to hold duty-bearers accountable.
This training workshop will host over fifty (50) citizen group members in the Mining communities in the Western and Ashanti Regions of Ghana. The workshops will specifically be held in Tarkwa, Bogoso, Prestea, and Obuasi, all of which are major mining communities in Ghana.
The MFWA will also build the capacities of four (4) leading radio stations in these communities in using the RTI Law to develop stories as well ensuring accountability in the regions. The beneficiary radio stations comprise Pure Fm in Tarkwa, Trinity Fm in Bogoso, Energy Fm in Prestea and Time Fm in Obuasi.
“The Right to Information Law is one of the key legal instruments that both citizens and the media can use to fight the endemic corruption in Ghana. It’s also a tool to seek redress on a number of issues if one has the ability to use it well.
In the mining communities of Ghana, minerals exploitation and its associated illegal activities, including what’s widely known in Ghana as ‘galamsey’, have portended a lot of abuses and mismanagement against citizens. We are hopeful these training workshops will build the capacities and empower the journalists and citizen activists to hold authorities to account in their communities,” Adizatu Moro Maiga, Programme Officer at the MFWA, said.
In August this year, a similar training was organized for Journalists in Liberia and Sierra Leone on the Freedom of Information Law and Right to Access to Information Laws respectively.
This training workshop will be organized with funding support from the Embassy of Netherlands
