Accra, July 30, GNA – The Coca-Cola Company on Saturday announced that the company is instituting an annual training session for journalists dubbed “the Coca-Cola media training for excellence” in the country.

Mr Reiner Becker, Franchise Manager of Coca-Cola Equatorial Africa, said this when speaking at a media soiree in Accra.

The soiree which attracted journalists from the state and private media organizations served as a platform for the Coca-cola officials to fraternize with the Ghanaian media personnel.

The company also used the occasion to announce that it would sponsor the prize for the Best Health Reporter during the annual Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards scheduled for August.

The company presented a cheque of 3,000 Ghana Cedis as the prize money for the 2010 Best Health reporter.

Mr Becker said the first training programme for the media would start from Ashanti Region and that the company had already discussed the programme with officials of the GJA and had done the needs analysis of the members in the Ashanti Region.

“This is a commitment we will fulfil before the end of the year so that we can look at another region next year” he said.

Mr Becker said Coca-Cola had shown interest and commitment to the health and hygiene needs of deprived communities and had helped to provide clean water in the Jomoro District of the Western Region and Kumasi in the Ashanti region.

He said the company had also undertaken other health related activities including the provision of mosquito nets for some deprived communities in the Northern and Eastern regions.

Mr Ransford Tetteh, President of GJA, announced that the Association would hold a public forum to invite stakeholders in the media to discuss the recent language of insults in the country’s media landscape.

He said the forum would be open to the general public to brainstorm and come out with workable solutions on how to solve the situation.