Dan Botwe exposes GBC boss

The former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Dan Kwaku Botwe has accused the Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Mr. William Ampem Darko of doing everything possible to please the new National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in order to protect his job.

He said, William Ampen Darlro is a strong NPP man who on two occasions contested the NPP primaries in Eastern region and lost, but because the party has lost power, he is trying to please the government to protect his job.

Dan Botwe, who is the Member of Parliament for Okere, was reacting to Ampen Darko's open confession that he personally stopped last week's break fast show on Ghana Television, because the panel was not properly constituted.

The Okere MP said he was surprised with the behaviour of the GBC Director because he did not see anything wrong with two sympathisers of NPP and one from NDC being empanelled to discuss the State of the Nation address, which was delivered by the President. He noted that what the GBC Director General did was very disgraceful and should have apologized to the viewing public instead of trying to justify the action.

Reacting to Hon. Botwe's accusation Mr. Ampem Darko admitted that he once contested an NPP primary, but said since he became the Director General of GBC, he had never attended any NPP rally because his new position is supposed to be non political.

Stating an hypothetical situation, he challenged Hon. Dan Botwe, who once served as the Minister of Information in the past NPP government, about how he would have reacted if GTV had empanelled names like Dr. Tony Aidoo and Baba Jamal against only one NPP person to discuss the State of the Nation address by former President Kufuor.

He dismissed suggestions that he was helping NDC in order to protect his job, saying that the Media Commission appointed him and not the government. He insisted that he was discharging his duty as a Public servant.

According to Ampen Darko, he was upset with the decision by the producers of the morning show to empanel two NPP panelists as against one from NDC because management of the corporation held a meeting with the political parties where it was agreed that composition of panelists on its programme should be even.

Ampen Darko also denied that it was because of the telephone call from Mr. Richard Quashiga, a member of the NDC communication team that he decided to end the programme abruptly. He claimed that at the time Quashiga's call came in, he had already spotted the problem with the composition of the panel, and he had already called the studio for them to stop the show.

It would be recalled that a recent morning show programme on GTV was brought to an abrupt end without any information to the viewing public. It later emerged that Mr.Richard Quashigah put a call through to Mr. Ampen Darko, protesting against the composition of the panel.