To reduce the number of new infections in Ghana, the Ghana AIDS Commission has requested additional funding to expand its campaigns, advocacy, and public education initiatives.
Dr. Kyeremeh Atuahene, the Commission’s Director General, stated that the Commission has a responsibility to initiate communication initiatives aimed at educating people, especially at the grassroots level, so that they are adequately informed.
He noted that the objective is to publicise their campaigns through all available channels, especially traditional media, but that doing so has become prohibitively expensive.
He disclosed that the Commission owed multiple media outlets for conducting advertising campaigns and was unable to pay for these commercials.
We operate advertisements on a variety of platforms, such as Multimedia, Media General, and Omni Media, but we are unable to pay and owe them significant quantities of money. We owe them money that we do not possess, said Mr. Atuahene.
“Additional resources are necessary to execute our campaigns and communication strategies. We have a specialist at the Ghana AIDS Commission who helped us devise the concepts, but we lack the funds to implement them. When I brought up these concerns, some misunderstood them as a request for funds. “This is not true.”
He added, “All I’m doing is highlighting the problems the Commission faces. We are simply being truthful so Ghanaians won’t condemn us. We say these things in the hope that positive-minded individuals will lend a hand. Those who refuse to assist and believe that these issues are not significant will be exposed.”
The Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission emphasized that we have everything necessary to eradicate HIV/AIDS, but we lack the resources to implement the necessary mechanisms to do so.
