Venture into full-fledged publishing – Oppong Nkrumah to GPC Board

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has charged the seven-member board of the Ghana Publishing Company (GPC) to join forces with management and staff of the GPC to venture into full scale publishing.

The call was made by the Information Minister after he swore in the Board of Directors of the GPC at the conference room of the Ministry today the 9th of September 2021.

Commending the management and staff of the GPC for their moderate achievement of turning the fortune of the GPC around from 2017 to date, Oppong Nkrumah said it is time to look beyond printing and distribution of Acts of Parliament and other state documents.

It is the Information Minister’s expectation that if an author signs with a fully functional publishing unit of the GPC, they can expect GPC to do everything; from copy editing, to media training authors and illustrators, creating marketing materials to promote the book, deciding which retailers to approach to stock the book, and persuading newspaper and magazine editors to run reviews.

“In my recent conversations with you, I have made the point quiet clearly to you that, you have been doing a lot of the printing and the production of some of the state documents, but publishing as you are aware, is a technical area on its own and if we want to improve on the writing and publishing culture here in Ghana, Ghana Publishing has the capacity to set up a fully-fledged publishing unit and go full throttle into it so that authors, writers, academics, fictional writers and people who want to go into full scale publishing of literary works can find you as a very comfortable home through which they can work,” Oppong Nkrumah said.

Digitalize Operations

Oppong Nkrumah in his brief remarks also charged the management and board of the GPC to join in the digital revolution taking place in Ghana under the Akufo-Addo government to move their sales and distribution operations online. This he says will improve access to GPC products across the country.

“It is heart-warming to see in the first term, where you brought what used to be your book store or sales centre to this very modernized level where now, you have banking units that are in there to receive cash to reduce inefficiencies, strong customer service approach and even a refurbished sale centre,” the Information Minister said.

“In this second term, I want to charge you to go beyond that. We are in an era where digitalization is improving access to public service and it is providing more convenience to the Ghanaian consumer at home. So we ask you to focus on taking what you did in the first term by taking that physical place now online,” Oppong Nkrumah added.

Chairman of the Board

The re-appointed Board Chairman, Dr. Daniel Owusu-Ansah in his response registered their appreciation to the President for appointing them. He indicated that during their first term, they managed to print, publish and distribute but are ready to transcend the bar they have set.

“We fully commit ourselves to what the Minister has said, especially, regarding digitalization of the place (GPC), modernization, introduction of modern publishing practices and we are very hopeful that this time round, we will not just be counted, but of course, we will like to be very great in the sub-region, that we will become a reference point for printing and publishing in our part of the world.”

Board Members

The seven-member Board has the re-appointed Managing Director of GPC, David Boateng Asante, Paul Twum–Barimah, Dr. Kingsley Nyarko, Madam Lawuratu Musah–Saaka, Mr Isaac Kofi Appiah and Madam Beatrice Barwuah, all nominees of the President, as its members with political historian and lecturer at the Department of History and Political Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Dr. Daniel Owusu-Ansah, as its Chairman.

Ghana Publishing Company

Ghana Publishing Company (formerly called Ghana Publishing Corporation) was incorporated on March 9, 1965 under Legislative Instrument No. 413, and subsequently amended by L.I. 672 of December 11, 1970 to take over the functions of the former Government Printing Department and the administration of the Government Free Textbook schemes.

The Assembly Press was converted into a Limited Liability Company under the Statutory Corporations (Conversion to Companies) Act 461, 1993, and re-named Ghana Publishing Company Limited in 2007. The GPC exists primarily to print and publish very high quality books and stationery for educational institutions, government departments and the general public at competitive prices.

Wilberforce Asare

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