THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA HAS NO BUSINESS USING TAXPAYERS' MONEY TO FUND SCHOLARSHIPS FOR JOURNALISTS!

Ghanaian politicians never seem to learn the lessons of history. During its tenure, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime of Kufuor & Co., found ingenious ways of using taxpayers' funds - including siphoning funds out of the Tema Oil Refinery - to buy the loyalty of journalists and media houses.

And no matter what noble reasons they give to cloak it, the present National Democratic Congress (NDC) government's so- called media development fund, which has just been announced, is in much the same vein - a clever way to use state resources to influence journalists and media houses: but this time with perfect legal cover.

In a nation with so many problems and so many citizens struggling just to survive, is it not immoral to set such a huge sum aside - merely to enable those in power to manipulate the media through respectable proxies, appointed to the board of yet another bureaucratic set up created for the purpose: in the hope of winning that non-productive and never-ending propaganda war between political parties?

For starters, since the constitution bars governments from interfering even in the affairs of the state-owned media, what right do politicians have to use taxpayers' funds for the education of journalists, including those working in private media establishments - each one in business to make money for its shareholders, I ask?

With the havoc various types of subsidy have wreaked on government finances and ultimately on Ghana's economy over the years, you would think politicians would shy away from that daft policy.

Why use hapless taxpayers' money to feed the sense of entitlement felt by so many in a profession full of indolent blackmailers and third-rate professionals - working in an industry jam-packed with poorly-managed commercial basket-cases?

The question we must ask our present rulers is: Is it the case that rather than learning lessons from those disastrous policies of the past, the present government proposes to take the deficit-creating, loss-making concept of subsidy in free-markets to a new level - this time paying for the further education of the employees of private for-profit entities?

The education of practising Ghanaian journalists ought not to be the concern of any government of Ghana - in as far as the provision of funding of same is concerned. That is not the job of any elected government of Ghana.

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is a most unwise step - and those who thought it up will come to regret it as sure as day follows night: when they are eventually voted out of power, and are in the political wilderness once again.

With respect, it is not the job of any government of Ghana to spend taxpayers' money, to improve standards in the Ghanaian media world. Ghanaians have got exactly the kind of media they deserve. Period.

Let the wise heads in this regime insist that this ignominious idea, deliberately dressed up to look like a noble proposal, is quickly abandoned - and the money involved given instead to the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) and the School of Communication Studies, at the University of Ghana, Legon.

If, as is usual with today's crop of short-sighted and hard-of-hearing politicians, they fail to listen to free good advice in this matter, the NDC will come to rue the day they allowed this idiocy. Buying the conscience of journalists, and seeking to influence media houses, is a mug's game, in the digital age. Period.

In making this unwise move, the NDC regime is effectively providing a building-block for nepotism and abuse of office, by future governments. No government of Ghana has the right to use taxpayers' money to fund a scholarship scheme for Ghanaian journalists. The NDC regime of President Mills must desist from it. A word to the wise...

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