Stakeholders Workshop Held to Discuss Draft Public Relations Professional Bill

By Frederick Gadese-Mensah

The Institute of Public Relations (IPR) in collaboration with the Ministry of Information (MOI), yesterday held a stakeholders workshop, in Accra, to discuss the draft Public Relations (PR) Professional bill.

The draft bill seeks to establish a Public Relations Council (PRC), to regulate the practice of PR, register practitioners, license public relations communicators, consultancies, companies and to provide for PR related matters.

The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, speaking at the event said the workshop was to examine the proposals the bill offers and if the institutes' argument was strong, the ministry would ferry the bill to Cabinet for them to look at before sending it to parliament, to give it legislative backing.

He noted that, he had high hopes for the bill stressing that the policies and proposals that the bill would bring would be realistic and would meet the standards of cabinet.

"The institute must be commended for doing a descent job for coming this far and after the workshop where policies would be examined, agreed or disagreed with, we will know the way forward," he added.

Present at the workshop were representatives from various institutions including the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), the Office of the Attorney General, the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners, Ghana Business School and the National Media Commission.

The Vice President of the IPR, Mr Mawuko Afadzinu, in an interview with the Ghanaian Times expressed optimism that reviewing of the bill would be a success and any issue that may come up would be resolved.

"The process would be long but the desire is strong and we would get this bill to cabinet and would soon be passed," he stated.

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