The president of the NMC asked to recuse himself for the Joynews documentary file

General News on Friday, May 3, 2019

Source: Myjoyonline.com

2019-05-03

The chairman of the National Media Commission, Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh, was asked to recuse himself from a lawsuit filed by the government against Multimedia Group Ltd.

The former General Manager of Graphic Communications Group Ltd., Ken Ashigbe, who launched this appeal, said that the fact that a government-appointed administrator is badisting in a case brought by his nominating authority against a home press is a conflict of interest.

JoyNews aired a documentary on March 7 titled "The Militia in the Heart of the Nation" showing an unregistered security company and a militia group, De-Eye, training at Christianborg Castle, the former seat of government.

On March 13, the government filed a complaint with the NMC, insisting that JoyNews was denigrating its government for trying to suppress the activities of party militias that saw government officials attacked, closed public offices and an election. partial violent.

Despite the government's efforts to cope with the threat, the 22-minute documentary showed a group of pro-New Patriotic Patriotic (NPP) militiamen undergoing training at the institution that housed no fewer people than those appointed by the president.

Samson Lardy Anyenini, a lawyer for Multimedia Group Ltd, has raised issues with the fact that the government is using state resources to defend itself against a private press house of the media regulator, the NMC.

The National Media Commission is a constitutional body composed of 15 representatives of the media and media-related institutions, religious bodies, parliament and the president.

NMC members meet to elect their own president. Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh, appointed by the government to the Commission, was elected president in November 2018.

Ken Ashigbe, "agitated", called for the continued participation of the NMC President in this affair "a sin against the spirit and the letter of the constitution".

"I hope that with respect to the panels, the president of the NMC will not sit on the panel, any more than he will sit in plenary."

Speaking Friday at the AM Show channel of JoyNews TV, the former general manager of Graphic® has envisioned the option of seizing a court to challenge what he described as "an anathema." ".

On Ghana's World Press Freedom Day on Friday, Ashigbe said that conflict-of-interest situations such as those between the government and Multimedia Group Ltd were intended to gag journalists in the media. the exercise of their functions.

"If the NJC is independent, it does not matter if the government decides to bring a journalist to the Media Commission," he said.

His position was supported by a lecturer from the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Zakaria Tanko Musah, who also urged the government to reconsider its decision.

"I'm worried when I see the government dragging media staff to the regulator. It's an indirect way of trying to achieve what the constitution says we should not do in chapter 12. "

This chapter of the 1992 Constitution guarantees the freedom and independence of the media and requires that editors-in-chief or editors in the media space be neither subject to government control nor sanctioned for the content of their content. publications.

Tanko Musah said that when a party is harmed by the work of a press house, ways such as the CNG are available to help settle the grievance.

"People can do it, but not the government," he said. He called on the government to create an environment conducive to media work.

While the CNM faces criticism, Commission President Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, urged journalists not to be used by politicians .

Ghana has fallen behind the rankings of the World Press Freedom Index for 2019. Ranked first among African countries for four consecutive years, the country is now ranked third in Africa as a result of # 39, an increase in attacks on journalists.

The bordereau presents a paradox for the NPP government that ushered in an era of media pluralism after the repeal of the criminal defamation law in 2001.

Nana Akufo-Addo, Attorney General and Minister of Justice under the administration John Agyekum Kufuor, led the repeal.

He is now president.