“Members of Parliament in the Ashanti Region are saving their Common Funds without fully expending on developmental projects because journalists in the region are not practicing critical journalism”. These are the words of Solomon Nkansah, National Communications Director of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Speaking in a radio interview, the NDC scribe posited that majority of Journalists in the region are either supporters or sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) under the widely known fact that the Ashanti Region is the opposition party’s stronghold and have not been critical enough in charging MPs to be accountable in the utilization of their common funds.
“I am worried the Ashanti media has created avenues for MPs in the region to play on the people’s emotions and getting undeserved votes during presidential and parliamentary elections”, he stated.
He added politicians would be responsible in ensuring probity and accountability if the country’s media was vibrant and critical to enable the electorate to make informed decisions when casting their ballot.
Solomon Nkansah was commenting on President John Mahama’s ongoing ‘Accounting to the people tour’ as part of his evidence based governance policy, an action which has been described as a depletion of the national coffers by opposition politicians. He says in spite of the perennial criticisms from the opposition parties, President Mahama is unmatched in terms of the provision of development projects in all sectors of the economy, employment generation and reduction of poverty levels in the country.
“The NDC government has reduced the teacher-classroom deficit of 40, 000 by 6,000 and created 1,750 employment avenues as against the NPP’s 13 in the clinical audit field plus the massive improvement in the cocoa sector where 50 million seedlings would soon be distributed to cocoa farmers with free fertilizers” he maintained and continued that when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was creating employment by building factories, bridges and schools among others, the UP tradition was accusing him of misusing state financial resources; they are doing same to President Mahama only to realize finally that Ghanaians have voted for him again and then they turn around propagating falsehood that the elections have been rigged”
