A RENOWNED Kumasi-based industrialist, Mr Akenten Appiah-Menkah, has instituted a sponsorship package for the best cartoonist in the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) annual awards.
The package, according to him, was to recognise the laudable role cartoonists played in the development of journalism in the country.
Last Saturday, Mr Appiah-Menkah, who is also a veteran politician, presented the cheque to the GJA at his residence in Kumasi to cover the award at next Saturday’s GJA Awards to be held at the Banquet Hall of the State House.
Giving further explanation for his decision, Mr Appiah-Menkah said he had long been in love with cartoons, stressing that he was someone who could easily interpret cartoons.
He stated that when he was in crisis in the early 1990s, it was a cartoonist who went to his aid first.
According to him, in 1993 former President Rawlings issued a statement calling on the public to reject Apino Soap, which his company produced.
“At that time very few journalists could criticise the powers that be and it was a cartoonist who first came to my aid by depicting the negativity of that statement in a private newspaper before Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh and the late Prof P.A.V. Ansah also wrote condemning the statement,” he said.
He praised the GJA executives for recognising the importance of cartoonists in disseminating information.
Mr Appiah-Menkah indicated that unfortunately he would not attend Saturday’s GJA awards to present the prize to the best cartoonist, as he would be in the Upper West Region with some members of the Constitutional Review Committee.
However, he said he had delegated his wife, Mrs Rosemond Appiah-Menkah, to represent him at the ceremony.
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