Advertisers Association of Ghana calls on Information Minister
The Minister of Information, Mr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has said the projection of Ghana to the world as the best destination for investment and business cannot be achieved through ceremonial praise-singing.
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“What is going to make the world buy Ghana is not platitude. We need to have a ‘look and feel’ for Ghana,” he stressed.
He,has,therefore advocated a repackaging campaign to put together a concept of branding Ghana that would appeal to the people.
Such a campaign, he said, should be a concept that would infect and enlighten all those who come into contact with it.
Mr Abdul-Hamid said this when the Council of the Advertisers Association of Ghana (AAG) paid a courtesy call on him to congratulate him on his appointment as minister and to discuss matters affecting the industry with him.
Mr Abdul-Hamid said “The Advertising Association of Ghana is going to be a part of our efforts to reposition this country, to brand it and make it a unique selling point in the West African region,” he added.
Advertising Standards Bill
The President of the AAG, Mr Joel Nettey, said the association had worked with previous ministers over the last years to put together a bill that would adequately regulate the industry and that all the necessary stakeholders had been consulted and their inputs had been inculcated into the bill.
He said the bill was laid before Parliament in September 2016 shortly after which Parliament rose and so it could not receive the needed attention.
But the import of that bill, he said, was one that would streamline activities within the industry and ensure that the highest standards were not only set but also operational.
He emphasised the dangers posed when billboards fell when it rained.
Mr Nettey said it was unfortunate that when accidents occured from unprofessional practices by those who lacked the expertise, the buck always stopped with the association.
“But truth be told, not everybody who puts up a billboard is a member of our association,” he said.
Unprofessional practice
He also bemoaned the spate of adverts in the media that violated certain ethical principles, saying the bill would not only regulate the association and its members but would regulate everyone who took to advertising either at the professional or any other level.
Mr Nettey maintained that the essence of the bill was, therefore, to ensure practical standardisation of professional practice on all fronts.
He said it was not a bill packaged to the taste of members of the association but one that was arrived at after an exhaustive consultation with all stakeholders and for which reason it deserved all the needed support.
Unfriendly tax regime
The industry, he said, provided employment for many Ghanaians and so the government ought to provide the industry with the needed support to enable it to flourish.
He, therefore, called for a tax regime that would not disincentivise the industry but would ensure that more businesses came up to boost revenue generation.
The taxing regime for the industry, he said, was not friendly considering the fact that quite often when advertisers took on jobs, they might span a period but the Value Added Tax (VAT) regime would ask for tax to be imposed at the stage where an estimate was being developed and presented to a client.