The Ghanaian media has come under the spotlight recently - with many complaining about its negativity and unprofessionalism. Many also wonder why it is that the media in Ghana seldom ask the right questions when it matters most. The question then is: Is that not a great disservice to our liberal and democratic society?
And is it true, one wonders, that journalism is a byword for corruption in this country - as some allege? Should a profession in which the vast majority of practising journalists have failed to master even the basic tool of their profession - the English language - be taken seriously at all?
And should a profession full of mercenary individuals who have sold their consciences be regarded as the forth arm of government in our system - when they routinely take money either to kill stories, and suppress the truth, or can also be bribed to make up stories: all because of mean-spirited partisanship?
Perhaps truth might not matter very much to many politicians in our country, but truth is a media cornerstone - and ought to be regarded as such by all journalists and media entities in Ghana.
The New Patriotic Party's (NPP) verbally-aggressive Maxwell Kofi Jumah, is reported to have insulted Britain's high commissioner to Ghana, Mr. Jon Benjamin. He actually had the gall to call the pro-Ghana British diplomat, accredited to our nation as high commissioner (who has even gone native, becuase he has taken to our enchanting country), a "fool."
Amazing - when one considers the fact that most of the projects the asinine Jumah and Co forever bleat on about, and refer to as "social intervention programmes" under the perfidious President Kufuor's NPP government, were actually paid for by UK and EU taxpayers.
That outrage - which Jumah and Co's foolish, unjustifiable and misplaced complaints against Jon Benjamin, for speaking the truth, amount to - shows clearly just how far some politicians are prepared to go, in order to win this year's presidential and parliamentary elections.
Should the media in Ghana not demand that principle, truth and common decency, ought to inform our nation's politics - and point that out to Ghana's hard-of-hearing political parties: with this year's presidential and parliamentary elections just a few months away?
Clearly, Maxwell Kofi Jumah was not about to allow Jon Benjamin's inconvenient truth - that Bernard Allotey Jacobs' alleged arrest at London's Heathrow airport was a falsehood - to spoil the opportunity his hard-pressed and riven party, had been given out of the blue, to use as an election campaign heavy-weapon-of-choice.
No doubt he regarded it as a fantastic propaganda narrative - and was livid that the principled Jon Benjamin's honesty was snatching what he probably thought was Manna from heaven, away from his hapless party.
(Incidentally, it is to Jumah's credit that he is now reported to have apologised to Jon Benjamin. But I digress.)
What does it also say about our nation's politics, that uncouth and dissembling individuals lacking moral compasses, to a man, such as the Maxwell Kofi Jumahs, the Bernard Antwi-Boasiakos, the Robert Owusus and Solomon Nkansahs, are important figures in political parties in Ghana?
Why are journalists in Ghana not pointing that unacceptable anomaly out to ordinary Ghanaians? And why are they not demanding that politicians and political parties that decry high-level corruption, should publicly publish their own assets and those of their spouses - and all the sources of their parties' funding before the November elections: to prove their own commitment to fighting high-level corruption in Ghana?
And what does it say about our national life today that geniuses like the Bernard Allotey Jacobs can become board members of important state institutions like the National Petroleum Authority (NPA)? Does the Ghanaian media not see how such partisan square-pegs-in-round-holes appointments are steadily destroying our state institutions and organisations?
As regards the Bernard Allotey Jacobs Texas saga, the question is: Why have the Ghanaian media still not asked Authentix, the U.S. company that Bernard Allotey Jacobs says is paying for his hotel bills during his stay in Texas - and that of a female colleague who is apparently a lawyer for the NPA - for the total number of foreign governments and state-owned entities it's website says it serves around the world - and whether that list includes the NPA? And if yes, when exactly did the relationship with the NPA, begin?
And why, thus far, have Ghanaian journalists not enquired from those who run Authentix, whether or not it pays for the hotel bills of all representatives of foreign governments and state-owned entities that travel to Texas to transact business with their company - and if they are aware that such a company policy, if it exists, might be against the spirit of the U.S. Justice Department's Foreign Kleptocracy Initiative, and possibly breaches the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?
Then there is also the extraordinary saga of a U.S. company, American Tank and Vessel Inc., which is said to have been paid a total of some U.S.$109 million, but which despite that payment, has to date allegedly failed to meet it's contractual obligations to the Bulk Oil and Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST). Incredible. Can that really be true?
If indeed that widely-reported story is actually true, then when will the Ghanaian media demand that all those at BOST, who instead of using an engineering and construction agreement, rather entered into a supplier's agreement with American Tank and Vessel Inc. - which apparently also has a Ghanaian subsidiary, according to information available on it's website today - ought to be prosecuted for causing financial loss to Mother Ghana?
Who are the Ghanaian directors of American Tank and Vessel Ghana Limited as we speak - and who were the company's Ghanaian directors and shareholders at the material time it's parent company from the U.S. struck the deal with BOST, in 2006, originally?
And, why, is the Ghanaian media not outraged that instead of getting an attorney in the U.S. to make a formal complaint to the U.S. Attorney General, that technically, American Tank and Vessel Inc. is in breach of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and ought to be investigated for same, those now in charge of BOST are talking of a last-ditch attempt at a diplomatic solution to the impasse with U.S. Tank and Vessel Inc.?
If indeed it is true, as the acting managing director of BOST, Mr. Awuah Darko, alleges, that U.S. Tank and Vessel Inc. has indeed not met its full contractual obligations to BOST, then why is the Ghanaian media not making the point that instead of wasting time and energy seeking a diplomatic solution to the impasse, BOST should rather take all the active steps needed to file a complaint against that company, at the ICC International Court of Arbitration, in the French capital of Paris?
Would American Tank and Vessel Inc. not have dragged Ghana to the ICC International Court of Arbitration long ago if the boot had been on the other foot? Hmm, Ghana...
The question is: When will the Ghanaian media start asking the right questions, when it matters most, in all such situations - and is their deafening silence on such matters (in the sense of avoiding issues by deliberately not asking relevant and pertinent questions), not a great disservice to our homeland Ghana? Hmm, Ghana - enti yewieya paa enei? Asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
Post Script
I am aware of the fact that some media entities in Ghana are spending money and their energies on search engine optimisation - using variations of the nonce word "Ghanapolitics" which I coined to use as my blog's title - to get the top spots in search results, and hopefully, stop people from reading the Ghanapolitics blog, that way.
Poor sods. It won't work.
In any case, it matters not a whit to me where "Ghanapolitics" appears in search results - so Kofi Thompson is not about to spend money he does not have on a similar enterprise.
The most contemptible of all, are those who have set up news portals that use variations of my blog's Ghanapolitics title, in the hope of driving traffic away from my blog: so that my criticism of Ghana's criticism-averse vampire-elites will not reach far and wide. Jokers.
Well, actually, "Ghanapolitics" is high up in search results for the simple reason that it has many daily readers from all over the globe. Nothing more, nothing less.
Chief amongst that breed of online Ghana-centric equivalent of what Mr. Martin Amidu refers to as Ghana's "rented press," is the regime-praise-singing GhanaPoliticsOnline.com - the promoters of which know why they have raised my ire, so.
If they are going to piggyback off the Ghanapolitics brand's value, at least, instead of being just another clone of Ghanaweb.com, let them do something that is different and original - which makes a huge difference to the lives of those who browse to read their third-rate offering: and promotes Mother Ghana's well-being, as well. And let them get someone who is proficient in the English language to edit the pedestrian content they post online. Haaba. I rest my case.
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