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Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has expressed his shock at the abysmal performance of Ghana on the latest World Press Freedom Index.

Reporters Without Borders recently released the index with Ghana witnessing a decline in its rating, the worst in nearly two decades.

On the global front, Ghana slumped from 30th to 60th place whiles on the African front, the country fell from 3rd to 10th place.

Reacting to the report, Kofi Bentil labeled the ranking as a 'dismal' reflection of press freedom.

“Dismal press freedom credentials. What a mess!!!,” he posted on his Facebook wall.

In a separate post, he urged the government to be tolerant of dissenting views whiles desisting from threatening free speech.

“To improve our press freedom credentials. STOP THREATENING FREE SPEECH AND BEING INTOLERANT OF DISSENT!!. Is that hard??,” he quizzed.

Meanwhile, the government has partly attributed Ghana’s fall in the World Press Freedom Index to the change in methodology used.

According to a statement signed by Information Minister, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, Ghana was not the only country affected as four others also slumped from their previous positions.

“Due to this development, four (4) of the countries (Netherlands, Jamaica, Switzerland, and New Zealand) that ranked top ten (10) in 2021 significantly dropped in ranking, slumping out of the top ten (10) in the year under review.

“It is worthy of note that Ghana’s dip in ranking was largely influenced by two of the new parameters, namely, the Economic Context and Safety of Journalists where the country scored 47.22% and 62.25% respectively,” part of the statement read.