Of Joy FM’s Attempt To Lie On GREDA and Smear Mills Govt
ARABA COOMSON IS TOO SMALL
Yesterday afternoon, Ghanaians who unfortunately tuned-in and listened to Joy FM’s mid-day news had a rude shock of their lives when the station reported that there have been death threats on the lives of executives members of Ghana Real Estate Development Association (GREDA) and that the threats were the compelling reason that forced the association to withdraw its petition against the STX Korea affordable housing contract that is before Parliament.
According to now vintage Araba Coomson’s report, sources within GREDA indicates that the group chickened-out of their protest, mainly as a result of death threats on the GREDA executives and partly on the basis of government’s threats to deny GREDA members opportunities to do government contracts.
In the early hours of the day, GREDA’s u-turn had been published by an Accra daily. It was reported that the group took the decision after members had satisfied themselves with the facts and details of the STX Korea contract and getting convinced that the deal is not inimical to Ghana’s interest. Yet in the afternoon, Joy FM smartly rehashed the story and gave it an alarming twist, to create an erroneous impression that something more than the details of the deal had compelled GREDA to make the u-turn.
Joy FM’s newsroom dons: Ato Kwamena Dadzie and Seth Kwame Boateng, happily went on air in the afternoon, with counterpart Araba Coomson’s story without doing due diligence on the story. They succeeded in alarming their listeners that the government of Prof. John Evans Atta Mills was using death threats and other radically intimidating measures to push aside opposition to the STX Korea deal.
Just about three hours after that alarmist Joy FM news story, GREDA’s Executive Secretary, Mr. Sammy Amayigbor was on air, Asempa FM’s ‘Ekosi-sen’ show, to denounce the story and finally ridiculed it as a piece of concoction.
According to the GREDA chief, no executive member had received death threats of any kind, since their opposition to the STX Korea deal begun. He found it as hog-wash, the suggestion that GREDA was threatened to withdraw its petition, when the association met with the joint committee of Finance and Works and Housing, on Monday.
The GREDA Secretary who was speaking in his official capacity explained that GREDA, after meetings with the Hon. Alban S.K. Bagbin, the Minister of Works and Housing, was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the STX Korea compact is not a bad deal, after all, and that the group had not satisfied itself with the full details of the contract before they took their position.
Independent checks by The Informer indicated that the Joy FM news report was a well-calculated attempt by a faction within the NPP opposing the STX Korea deal, fearing the political gains that the NDC government will attract, after a successful passage, commencement and completion of the massive project.
Government and STX Korea sponsored Joy FM’s De-Graft Johnson to Korea, as part of the measures to open the deal, which was then being discussed, to public scrutiny and help inform the public. Notwithstanding this magnanimity, Joy FM continues to serve as the avenue to lunch baseless attacks on the same government. Hardly a day that passes without the station calling NPP’s Garby Otchere Darko of Akufo-Addo’s Danqua Institute or his friends, for more mileage in his/their opposition to the deal.
So after GREDA had also abandoned the train of opponents of the deal, Araba Coomson, Joy FM’s Parliamentary reporter, who benefited immensely from the NPP government***, after her thumping at Metro TV, was contacted to do the dirty job, which she happily got ever-willing-NPP propagandists, Ato Kwamena Dadzie and Seth Kwame Boateng to do.
Even in the face of the sharp reaction by GREDA to deny the story in the evening, the ever-willing-NPP propagandists working in the news room of Joy FM, went ahead to orchestrate the repetition of Araba Coomson’s news item, during the 6:00 pm bulleting, as a sign of standing by its sources in the face of big doubts.
The facts however remain that Joy FM lied to its listeners, when it claimed that government had threatened members of GREDA to withdraw their opposition to the STX Korea deal. GREDA yesterday exposed Joy FM. Period.
What happened yesterday, is once again, an ample testament to the fact that the once super-power station, that was noted for professionalism and outstanding credibility, is now an avenue for NPP’s bought propagandists and benefactors, rampaging as journalists and presenters working within the Kokomlemle media house.
It is however certain, that the days for Araba Coomson and her co-mischief makers are numbered. There are better people around to take-up the mantle of pushing them out. This we can promise.
In the meantime, the bells will ring, the deal will be passed, the first-phase of the project, comprising 30,000 houses will be constructed and struggling security officers will be relieved. Brothers and sisters struggling to raise investment capital into renting apartments for two-three years will give a huge sigh of relief.
The Araba Coomson and Ato Kwamena Dadzie group of NPP paid agents, including their Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, should therefore get ready for all that will come their way. This nonsense of alarming the public unnecessarily must stop somehow, someway. Yellow journalists.
