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THE GHANA Journalists Association (GJA) has cleared the Deputy Minister of Information, Baba Jamal and journalists at the centre of the infamous bribery allegation and mystery tape. �The national executive hereby concludes that on the basis of the evidence adduced so far, the allegation of wrongdoing by journalists could not be established while that of wrongdoing by the Deputy Minister of Information could also not be proven. �In spite of the fact-finding committee to unravel the issues, they did not have the technical capacity to interrogate all the issues,� a news release signed by the GJA President, Ransford Tetteh, noted. It would be recalled that last week, a recording of a voice which is or sounds like that of the Deputy Minister of Information�s, was heard telling some selected journalists at a �secret� meeting in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region of government�s decision to engage their services, with a promise of paying them monthly salaries and allowances. But barely 24 hours after details of the alleged audio recording started emerging, Baba Jamal denied the story, saying the voice was not his. Information also indicated that the journalists who were carefully selected had been enrolled as interns under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), of which they had been issued with appointments letters which took effect from June 1, 2011 and expected to end on June 1, 2013. Subsequently, the Upper East Regional Branch executives of the GJA conducted its own investigations and came out with a report which it forwarded to its national executive in Accra. The GJA, in the statement said, �The national executive of the GJA has studied the report of the Upper East Regional Branch executive concerning allegations of attempted bribery of some journalists in that region.� The three-member fact-finding committee chaired by the Upper East Regional Chairman, Eric Amoh, established that two people, Abdulai Issaka, a stringer of Metro TV and an intern of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) were given letters of appointment by NYEP. According to the release, �The committee said in the case of the GBC intern, this was done following an application from GBC and also the application followed the laid down regulations. But in the case of Mr. Issaka, the appointment was secured for him by Mr. Samuel Abaane, the Inquirer correspondent and a member of the NDC Communication team in the Upper East Region.� On the Baba Jamal Tape, the committee said, �It was difficult to establish any connection between the purported tape and the official meeting held by Mr. Jamal with the press in that region.� It added that �the Deputy Information Minister did not make those statements captured on the tape during his official meeting with the press.� The committee also indicated that it could not establish if there was any other meeting or meetings by the Deputy Minister for Information with any other group or groups after the official interaction with the media. �The two main characters who were mentioned, Messers Joseph Osei and Samuel Abaane, disagreed on the occurrence of a second meeting. �Mr. Osei insisted that such a meeting took place, while Mr. Abaane said no such meeting took place,� the statement noted. According to the statement, the journalists mentioned by Mr. Osei as having been present, also denied there was such a meeting. The GJA has therefore �advised those who made the allegations to formally petition the National Media Commission (NMC) if they are so minded�. The NMC, the GJA noted, as a constitutional body, was in a better stead to collaborate with security agencies to establish other aspects of the allegations, especially as it related to the credibility or otherwise of the contents of the tape under reference.