The Information Minister-designate, Fatimatu Abubakar, has commended Ghana’s improved ranking on the World Press Freedom Index following two consecutive years of decline.
Ghana experienced a notable improvement in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index, ascending 12 places to the 50th position, up from the 62nd position.
In 2023, Ghana recorded its lowest ranking in 18 years, falling to 62nd from 60th the previous year.
In an interview on Citi TV’s The Point of View, the information minister-designate characterized Ghana’s performance as “significant”.
“I was excited for one, that there’s being improvements. I think to jump from 62nd to 50th is significant,” she remarked.
Fatimatu Abubakar asserted that Ghana’s performance is an improvement rather than a regression, expressing their commitment to enhancing it through stakeholder engagements and programs.
“No matter how modest people would like to look at it, I think it’s better than deteriorating. Because all the efforts that we are putting into these support programmes and the engagements with stakeholders, is to the effect that we want to improve,” she said.
She dismissed discussions comparing Ghana’s performance over the years, explaining that the assessment and methodology vary from year to year.
“There’s also a conversation about the comparison between the current record and previous record, and when that explanation is given, you realise that sometimes people can be intellectually dishonest. There’s no single report that Reporters Without Borders has brought out without giving basis.
“Talking about the format of assessment and methodology that was used. So, a mere comparison of printing Ghana’s position, we were here in 2015, number what in 2016 and drawing it down to this time. And saying we were 8th last year [2023] in Africa, we were 6th this year in Africa is not a representation of the truth,” the information minister-designate added.
She pointed out that Reporters Without Borders stated that there was no basis for comparing performance between the new method of assessment and the old one due to changes in indicators.
“In 2022, Reporters Without Borders came out with a different format of assessment. If you want to compare academic papers or research papers, you compare based on using similar methodologies. Previously, they were looking at how conducive media operation is, from the policy and legal perspective and how political actors were dealing with the media.
“The new method of assessment since 2022, shows that we have completely departed from that. If you look at the metrics or indicators, now they have introduced an economic indicator. Looking at the conditions of service, salaries, welfare of journalists, social indicators, political indicators, and security indicators. They even said that there’s no basis for comparison between the new method of assessment and the old one because indicators have completely changed,” she explained.
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