Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse,Chief Advisor to the President, has urged intellectuals and professionals with requisite knowledge on issues of national importance being discussed in public domain not to shy away from educating the population. Speaking at the launch of the Ghana Policy Journal, Mrs. Chinery-Hesse said although public discourse had been tainted with political posturing, which made it difficult for the population to differentiate fact from fiction, intellectuals and professionals were not helping the situation by opting out of the debate on critical issues. She said by joining the silent majority of docile listeners, they left the scene for those who might not be knowledgeable to fill the vacuum. “They should not feel shy to participate in this manner, and they should not consider the sharing of information through the media as demeaning of high academic achievement.” The Ghana Policy Journal is the publication of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a public policy think-tank, aimed to arouse discussions of views from a wide range of scholars dealing with policy-related issues. The eight papers in the maiden publication span economics, education, law and politics. It includes articles on trade liberalisation, implications of a growing funeral industry on the country’s economy and the teaching of mathematics, among others. Mrs. Chinery-Hesse lauded the IEA for the publication and said it was an indication that there were intellectuals willing and capable of developing alternative scenarios and agenda. She expressed the hope that public officials would make use of the publication to enhance policy-making. Dr Kwabena Anaman, Editor of the Ghana Policy Journal, described the journal as a multidisciplinary one that addressed policy-related issues across a wide range of topics. He said the IEA commissioned 15 papers of which eight were selected based on an international refereeing protocol.Source: GNA