Brochure gaffe: Responsible persons must be sacked

The person or group of persons responsible for the error-ridden brochures distributed at Ghana’s 59th Independence Day celebrations should have been fired, a senior communications lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Dr Eric Opoku-Mensah, has said.

Brochures distributed during the anniversary were riddled with inaccuracies including a wrongful designation of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta as the President of Ghana. The Coat of Arms of Ghana was referred to as the ‘Coat of Arm’, among a raft of other spelling and grammatical errors.

Acting Director of the Information Services Department (ISD) Francis Kwarteng Arthur, who took responsibility for the errors, has been fired by government but staff of the ISD insist the department had nothing to do with the printing of the brochure.

Speaking to Class News Friday, March 11, Dr Opoku-Mensah said government has handled the issue poorly.

“I am not impressed with the way government is handling the whole thing. I think that right at the beginning, when the issue occurred, government should have been bold enough to clear the air and accept responsibility, especially from the Flagstaff House because I think it has come out clearly that the whole communication challenge as regards to what happened at the independence celebration actually emanated from the communication team from the Flagstaff House,” the lecturer said.

“And clearly from the way those workers from the Information Services [Department] reacted to their boss accepting responsibility clearly shows that somebody else is responsible, and it’s actually coming from the Flagstaff House, but they forced the ISD boss to accept responsibility, and for me that wasn’t appropriate.

“I think that was the point government should have been bold to accept responsibility from the Flagstaff House… :‘This is what happened and we are taking steps to remedy the situation so that the person or group of persons responsible for this mishap should have been fired.’’’

Dr Opoku-Mensah believed firing persons responsible for the mistakes in the brochure would have given the government some credibility.

“It would have ended the case and actually created an opportunity for government to restore a certain minimal level of credibility in the face of all that has happened. But trying to turn things around in such a way that making people outside the Flagstaff House rather responsible for this mishap is an attempt to shift blame unnecessarily,” she said.