The Ghana News Agency Friday climaxed it 60th Anniversary celebrations with a thanksgiving service to honour God for sustaining the Agency through the years.

With songs of praises, prayers and dances, the celebrants demonstrated their gratitude to God for keeping them productive in the service of the nation.
The Hungarian Ambassador, Mr Andras Szabo and Dr Lawrence Tetteh, a renowned International Evangelist attended the ceremony, hosted at the headquarters of the GNA, in Accra, to lend their support and share their joy.

“We must not forget where we have come from! How good God has been to us as an Agency and as a nation; we should count our blessings and name them one by one,” Dr Tetteh, who delivered the sermon, told the Staff of the Agency, most of whom were in white to signify their victory and joyous mood.

Dr Tetteh commended the staff of the Agency for the yeoman role they had been playing in the media landscape by gathering and disseminating accurate news from the nooks and crannies to inform Ghanaians about the happenings in and around the country to make informed decisions.

He described GNA “as a unique media entity” that must continue to sustain its credibility and honesty as well as learn to live above the mediocrity some of the other media houses were exhibiting.

“GNA must not cut corners to malign peoples credibility; GNA must not lose its salt, because Ghana is looking at GNA for that credible and unbiased news report that will well inform the people,” Dr Tetteh stated.

He said over the years the news churned out by the GNA reporters had been tried and tested and could be reliably relied upon, expressing the hope that very soon the leadership of the country would recognise the indispensable role the Agency was playing and give it the needed resources to enable it continue to give its quota to Ghana.

For his part, Ambassador Szabo congratulated GNA for the critical role it was playing in disseminating news to inform the whole world through it online medium, which he said was very far reaching.

He said the Embassy was ready to partner the GNA through training and other capacity building programmes to enable the Agency and its staff to function better.

Mr Rex Annan, Acting General Manager of GNA, said since the launch of the Anniversary, in March this year, under the theme: “GNA at 60, Advancing the Ghanaian Dream”, the staff had undertaken several programmes including a massive clean-up exercise, which covered its Headquarters and parts of the Ministries area.

He said the GNA story continued to be told and discussed at various platforms as an institution with vast expertise and with many offices and staff in the regions and districts across the country to support the political and socio-economic development of the nation.

He noted that the GNA continued to make greater impact in its news gathering and information and topped many Africa news agencies despite the challenges and constraints confronting its operations.

He announced that at a meeting held in Morocco recently, the GNA was adjudged the first in the production of news among 30 African News Agencies that were studied, while Cote d’Ivoire was second.

Mr Annan said the staff of the GNA had continued to carry out its mandate “to the best of our ability with the limited resources available to us at any point in time in our schemes of affairs”.

He congratulated the GNA staff across the country for working tirelessly over the years with minimum rewards to bring the Agency thus far.

He assured the workers that the new Board and the Management aimed to secure the needed resources with which they could work better to move the nation forward to maintain the enviable position in the media landscape and advance the Ghanaian dream.

The GNA was established by Ghana’s First President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, on March 5, 1957, a day before Ghana had its independence, and charged with the responsibility of collecting, processing and dissemination of truthful and unbiased news to foster national cohesion, development and to tell the African story from the African perspective.

It was the first News Agency to be established in Sub-Saharan Africa.