The General Secretary of GJA has commended Kosmos Energy for its consistency to and support for media work in the country and the association’s quest to reward excellence.

Mr. David Agbenu said media should not be seen as and antagonistic entity, but rather a development partner that discharges its duties to advance the course of society, speak for the underprivileged and bring to the fore pressing issues to the attention of managers of economy and development partners.

The general secretary said it was very important to embolden the collaboration at all level to avert information asymmetry and to allow professional dissemination of information.

For his part, Vice-President and Country Manager of Kosmos Energy, Ghana, Mr. Joe Mensah has urged the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and its members to continue to work closely with the corporate world to ensure convergence on issues that will better inform the public.

Speaking after presenting a cheque for ¢20,000.00 to support this year’s 21^st GJA Awards aimed at rewarding excellence in the media, he said Kosmos Energy had been associated with media practitioners through the GJA and other collaboration activities directly with the media over the past four years.

His outfit he said will continue to strengthen its relationship with the media, “As the media; you have the greatest privilege and responsibility of reaching out to the masses with credible information.”

“Therefore we as individual groups cannot take on this task in isolation, we need to work together with the media as a team as we achieve our goal of to build our nation,” he said.

Mr. Mensah said Kosmos will continue to look for different ways to motivate the media and that in the pas awards it had supported the anticorruption category.  “This time, we are addition Agribusiness category.”

The support for agriculture category was in line with its latest social investment project, Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) that seeks to support the development of the various sectors in Ghana, starting with agriculture.

“The new KIC initiative, Kosmos wants to empower the youth to adopt innovative ideas to solve developmental challenges in the country, and the motivation for seeking this close ties with the media and therefore supporting the fourth consecutive time the awards event.

The vital role and position occupied by the media in nation building always had was one of the motivations for Kosmos to encourage professionalism in news reportage by the media in the country irrespective of the subject, and more particularly about the oil and gas industry.

Kosmos team he said recognize that information about the industry and its operations as Kosmos and by extension, its partners – Tullow, GNPC, Petro SA and Anadarko with the Jubilee and now the TEN fields be made available to the public.

The dynamics in the industry, therefore, need to be told to the Ghanaian public in ways to inform them about the contribution being made by the industry, and to excite them about the benefits it holds presently and in the future.

Kosmos Energy he said would want to encourage transparency as it continues to engage the media through workshops about the oil and gas lifecycle, and in addition encourage professional journalism and transparency in Ghana. 

Such collaborations, he said would continue to ensure that work together to bring to the public, information about the industry and the benefits that ha accrued to the nation since Kosmos’ discovery of oil in 2007.  

He used the opportunity to commend the association for its continuous effort to reward its professionals and congratulate the presumptive winners and the entrants of the award, which will be held at the weekend.