The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has condemned the Mahama administration’s failure to take action against a presidential aide on media relations, Stan Dogbe, who reportedly seized and destroyed the tape recorder of a journalist.
The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) reporter, Yahaya Kwamoah, had gone to the 37 Military Hospital a month ago to report on an accident involving the presidential press corps (which killed the Ghanaian Times’ Samuel Nuamah), when Mr Dogbe allegedly accosted him and destroyed his recorder.
The assault is said to have been triggered by Mr Kwamoah’s alleged recording of a ‘private’ conversation between Communications Minister Omane Boamah and Mr Dogbe.
The development provoked a firestorm of controversy, with some members of the public calling for punitive action against Mr Dogbe.
Professor Audrey Gadzekpo, who is the head of the School of Communications Studies of the University of Ghana, Legon, even raised the stakes by calling on the media to put pressure on President John Mahama to sack Mr Dogbe for his conduct.
But one month on, the Presidency has yet to take action against Mr Dogbe, prompting the MFWA to accuse it of “condoning impunity”.
In a press statement issued Tuesday, the MFWA questioned the Presidency’s failure to take “decisive action” on the development “as a way of demonstrating commitment to the safety of journalists and countering impunity”.
The MFWA suggested that by failing to act on the matter, the Presidency was condoning “impunity over acts of human rights violations and violations of press freedom for that matter”.
It also criticised the GBC’s decision to treat the matter as an internal matter despite calls for the police to be involved.
“The attitude of GBC in this matter is a betrayal of the kind of action that media organizations are supposed to take to build confidence in their journalists and to fight impunity over crimes against journalists.”
The MFWA went on to charge “journalists and the media community to demand that the rights of journalists be respected and acts of impunity against journalists be fought against”.
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