The Executive Director of the Ghana Employers’ Association, Mrs Rose Karikari Annang, has challenged the private sector to be at the forefront of promoting democratic governance, peace and stability in the country. She said this could be achieved by maintaining fair and competitive markets and ensuring that "the poor have equal access to economic opportunities, productive employment and credit". Mrs Annang was delivering a lecture on "Democracy and Development" at the first lecture and fund-raising organised by Community Communication Limited, publishers of the National Group of Newspapers. The one-hour lecture focused on good governance, functions of government, non-state actors and economic challenges. Mrs Annang asked the private sector to set up enterprises that produce jobs and opportunities and initiate moves to attract investments while at the same time helping in the transfer of knowledge and technologies to the poor. "The private sector can help in providing incentives for human resource development and protecting the environment and natural resources", she stated. Mrs Annang noted that small and medium-sized enterprises were often innovative, flexible and important sources of job creation and entrepreneurship and urged the sector to capitalise on the advances in the macro-economic stability and democratic governance and launch reforms to propel the growth of the sector. Mrs Annang called for the strengthening of state institutions such as the. Judiciary, Legislature, and the Electoral Commission, to further advance the country's democratic drive. The Managing Editor of the National Trust Newspaper, Mr Theo Alfreds, appealed to public institutions to sustain private newspapers on the market by advertising in them. He said the editorial team of the National Trust Newspaper received 1,200 responses in a random sampling among journalists, teachers and other workers that nominated the Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (retd); the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu; and the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, as the ministers to be considered for Ministers of the Year award. Major Quashigah was there to receive his certificate but certificates for Mr Baah-Wiredu and Ms Botchway were received on their behalf. Source: Daily Graphic