The members of the committee were Yaa Oforiwaa Asare-Peasah (Chairperson), Mr John Vigah (Journalist with Ghanaian Times), Mr Vance Azu (former Journalist with Daily Graphic), Andrew Edwin (President of PRINPAG), KwabenaAntwi-Komadu(Academia), Harold Roger Quartey (Head of Production UTV) and Loretta Vanderpuye (Journalist with GBC) as members of the committee.

Entries for this year’s award ceremony themed “walking the Path towards Economic Recovery: The Role of the Media” will be submitted via the Association website starting from today.

For the first time, the awards will be a cocktail ceremony whilst the annual GJA Dinner night, will be more of a socialisation event where industry players and corporate partners get the time to meet and socialise.

Speaking at the launch and inauguration ceremony, President of the GJA, Mr Alberta Dwumfuor said, to make the awards more competitive and relevant, the Association had reduced the number of awards to 45.

He said, one significant thing about this year’s awards was the fact, that the Journalist of the Year would be very competitive as the winner would be selected based on competitive entries.

“This is a departure from the practice whereby the Awards Committee selected a winner in consultation with the National Executive.

We, therefore, urge all journalists who believe their works meet the criteria set out by the Awards Committee to file their entries. We assure them that the process will be fair and transparent,” Mr Dwumfuor said.

He urged journalists to focus on the Auditor General’s Report and ensure that the findings were fully implemented, to protect the public purse, and as well channel such funds into programmes such as the Free Senior High School (SHS), the School Feeding Programme among others.

Former GJA President, Mr Ranford Tetteh, appealed to media persons to uphold the principles of the profession, devoid of any political affiliations to unearth stakeholders who embezzled and misappropriate public funds.

He said, it was the mandate of journalists to ensure that whatever resources given to individual(s) or institutions to embark on initiatives or programmes on behalf the state were properly accounted for.