[ 2010-09-18 ]

Is it ok for Government to bribe the media?
It is standard practice in countries where
political communicators who know what they are
doing, attempt to swing editorial opinion, though
not with hampers, but with policy agenda which is
more appealing to the commercial interest of media
proprietors.

The Daily Guide and Ghanaian Chronicle newspapers
command the highest percentage of the national
private newspaper market, far larger than other
competitors and have a weight of editorial opinion
no party could afford to ignore. Therefore, it is
ok if the Mills government wants to increase
rapport with journalists and editors. Sadly
however, this government is not even attempting to
persuade the Chronicle and Daily Guide to turn
against the NPP and print more items favourable to
the NDC. And there’s everything wrong if it is
using taxpayers’ money on journalists who are
considered friendly with the view to influencing
coverage.

How can a government that has mothballed spending
on higher education and other frontline services
justify to the hard working tax payers who are
facing economic difficulties in their families and
businesses that it had spent over a million US
dollars of their money on freebies for their
friends in the media? And this comes at a time
when an estimated thirty-five percent of the
country’s work force is children who are supposed
to be in schools and not on farms or the streets
selling.

The irony of the expenditure is that, hardly would
you find any Ghanaian who understands the content
of the 2010 budget. And what a pity if this
government feels presenting hampers to journalists
is a strategy in capturing the news agenda.

Rarely had there been a day in the last four
months when the government had kept just a single
success story high up in the news. Government’s
attack dogs like Ablakwa, Omane Boamah, James
Agyenim and others have been reduced to mere
onlookers of events.

In spite of the 1.6billion cedis largess allegedly
paid to journalists and buying media, the
government’s communications team have become not
just impotent in influencing events but have
completely been in the dark about the NPP’s rather
clever but assailable strategy. The NPP has run a
very astute and effective campaign of causing
difficulty for the government.

What the people who recommended and forced
President Mills to lumber us with appointees like
Ablakwa failed to recognise is that, it is one
thing holding placards and silly piddling at CJA
demonstrations or being a drab morning show host
on Radio Gold, and it is a completely different
tune designing and installing a media firewall
around a government that would detect and repel
news stories which might threaten a government and
neutralise opposition propaganda.

Though some of these appointees are very young, I
sincerely think the likes of Nii Lantey, Ablakwa
and Boamah are ripe not only for retirement but
for residential care. They can’t help improve
government’s low ratings and they won’t stop
making vote killing pronouncements.

Another angle to this 1.6billion hamper for
journalists is the implications of a collapsed
trust in journalism by the public. When
politicians and journalists enter into a special
relationship where journalists are treated to
freebies paid for from the public purse, the
People on low income, those without jobs, the
disadvantaged in our country and the fed up man or
woman in the street are the losers. The working
class and the fed up man in the street are not
served in any better way when politicians and
journalists collude to feed on their sweat and
toil.

The average politician acts with criminality and
gusto, but in becomes a betrayal if the press
joins the politicians in their criminality. This
is damaging to the government but more damaging to
media who are seen as the gate keepers and the
voice of the voiceless. The general public has
confidence in the press to act fairly and within
the law. It is therefore self-serving for any
government - whether the oppositionNew Patriotic
Party or the ruling National Democratic Congress –
to offer gifts to members of the press ostensibly
to influence reportage.

1.6 billion cedis is a lot of money to be used for
just hampers and buying airtime. It is sadistic;
an abuse of public funds, it is abuse of power and
an insult to the millions of Ghanaians who kicked
out the NPP for some of these same reasons.








Former Information Minister, Zita Okaikwei
The Media Commission, SFO, Financial Crimes Unit
of the Ghana Police Service and every well meaning
Ghanaian must rise up and demand a full
disclosure; we must be shown tangible proof of
what 1.6billion achieved and who got what.

Finally, the former Information Minister – Zita,
Stan Dogbe and others who are connected with
approval and disbursement must step aside until
investigations are concluded and if exonerated –
reinstated, otherwise processed for court for
prosecution. These officers’ continued stay in
office would be an unnecessary distraction to the
government and the NDC and there must be no
attempts of a cover up from the office of the
President.

Our party, the NDC has been pilloried for many
months now thanks to actions by some appointees of
government and the last thing we want is more bad
press from a more discredited party as the NPP.

Source - Ras Mubarak

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