Daily Guide & Others Crashed Again!

As Mahama Rubbishes Sefwi Nurses’ Beating Claims

A negative media publication being churned out by the Western Publications Company, publishers of the pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) newspaper, Daily Guide alleging that President John Mahama’s security details beat up a group of students of Sefwi-Wiawso College in the Western Region has turned out to be untrue.

The Daily Guide ironically is a beneficiary of huge advertising proceeds from the Mahama-for-President campaign chest.

A rebuttal statement from the Office of the President copied to THE HERALD described the claims made in the report as “false and politically motivated claims” by other media outlets who publicized the reports.

Meanwhile, Transparency International (TI), an anti-corruption organisation, has also denied being the source of several online stories published last week concerning the Presidents of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana on allegations of bank accounts in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

“The stories are a complete fabrication and do not in any way represent the views of Transparency International, or its National Chapters and other affiliates”, said a notice posted last Friday, October 26, by the Transparency International Secretariat.

It gave the name of Chris Sanders the body’s Media and Public Relations Manager, press@transparency.org, +49 30 3438 20 666 as the person to contact for verification.

Also denied is a feature article with the title “Ghana Prez John Mills Was Poisoned, Reuters Reports”.

The article has since been removed from www.ghanaweb upon a request of Reuters Thomson saying “we inform you that Reuters has not reported such news and that the mentioned reporter in the article does not work for Reuters”.

The article has been removed from the website upon a visit to the site by THE HERALD.

On the Daily Guide story, the statement from the Castle, signed by Presidential Spokesperson, John Abdulai Jinapor, emphasized that “President Mahama did not visit any such institution and never encountered any such group of students”.

Mr. Jinapor noted that “Neither did President Mahama’s security detail attack or beat up any group of people”, adding, that the concocted story has strong political undertones, “but not unexpected in view of the genuine and tremendous support John Mahama received from the people of the Western Region during the just ended tour.”

The President’s Spokesperson underscored that “President John Mahama received massive support and cheers from especially the youth and students on his trip”, stressing “that the publication of such concocted stories will not douse the surging popularity of President Mahama in the run up to the December elections”.

“We wish to assure the general public that President Mahama and his team will continue to run an issue-based campaign which ultimately seeks to improve the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian and will therefore not be drawn away from the real issues as is regrettably been exhibited by some people,” the statement said.

The Office of the President further expressed disappointment that “the media houses broadcast the false news despite reports from their correspondents travelling with the team that no such incident occurred”.