Ex-GJA Boss Runs From ¢15 Billion Payment To Journalists

Ms Adjoa Yeboah-Afari, ex-Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) President has denied ever drawing huge sums of money from the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to get journalists carry out propaganda activities on its behalf.

Ms. Yeboah-Afari was reacting to questions from The Herald on a damning Auditor General’s report covering activities of the Ministry of Information from January 2007 to December 2008 that indicated that some journalists, media organizations called “Editors Forum and Media Executives” were given billion cedis to whitewash the erstwhile Kufuor government and by extension the NPP party, at the time.

But Ms. Yeboah-Afari, who is the chairperson of Editor’s Forum Ghana (EFG), told The Herald her group is totally different from “Editors Forum” and added that neither had she requested nor ever drawn any money from the Kufuor regime to carry out propaganda by way of hyping up his administration.

She explained that her group, Editor’s Forum Ghana (EFG), in 2010 issued a statement in February, denying its involvement with the NPP government, and benefiting that much from it (government).

Meanwhile, The Herald’s investigations are pointing to a group of journalists, whose rendezvous is a restaurant located in a suburb of Accra, to be the beneficiaries of the propaganda cash. In one instance they collected a whooping GH¢1.5 million from the Ministry of Information.

The group, during the NPP era, enjoyed a lot of financial support from the regime; its members met on daily basis at the restaurant, where every week’s political agenda for the country was set, amidst partying that included drinking, smoking and eating sumptuous meals.

The report, which was silent on the names of the journalists who were given the money for the propaganda activities, has since been forwarded to the Attorney-General as well as the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for advice with a possible prosecution in sight.

Mr. Jojo Bruce Quansah, Managing Editor of The New Palaver and a member of the EFG also denied ever collecting any amount meant to have come from the Ministry of Information, for that matter the NPP government, as payment to conduct propaganda activities for it.

“I have been going to EFG meetings and I don’t remember being given money for propaganda activities, rather we members pay dues and other monies for the group’s activities”, said Mr. Quansah to The Herald, stressing that nobody had ever given him money because he was a member of the EFG.

The EFG is a grouping of editors and senior journalists and it is affiliated to the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA). More to come!