Kokutse joins GJA race

Mr. Francis Kokutse, the West Africa’s correspondent for the India-based Indo Asian News Service (IANS), has joined the race for the Vice-President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) in the election slated for March this year.

With over 34 years of experience in journalism and communications, Mr Kokutse is a member of the Ghana News Agency (GNA) Board of Directors. In addition, he writes for Bloomberg/BNA, as the West Africa correspondent covering tax, transfer pricing and data protection.

Also, he has been working as the Ghana Writer for the Associated Press (AP) for the past 10 years.

Rich experience

Mr Kokutse has also served as Ghana’s correspondent for the Nation Group of Kenya as well as a Special Correspondent for the American daily, USA Today, and covered stories in Nigeria and Ghana.

As an Investigative reporter, Mr Kokutse has been involved with cross-border work with the London-based International Centre for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and has been credited with collaborative works exposing illicit financial flows across Africa.

A 1990 Press Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, he also covered commodities and business for the Wall Street Journal, the Dow Jones Newswires, and also reported on oil and gas for the UK-based journal, Argus.

Kokutse, who cut his teeth as a journalist at the Ghanaian Times, served as the paper’s regional correspondent in Takoradi and Koforidua and later became the Castle correspondent during the days of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).

As a columnist, he used to write for South Africa’s Mail and Guardian’s Voices of Africa, the Finder newspaper in Ghana and the Ovation Magazine, where he was a founder team member. He currently runs a column in the Today newspaper.