MPs bribe journalists to be in the news – Ex-MP

A former Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Murtala Muhammad, has accused the media of giving prominence to only Members of Parliament whose submissions on the floor of the House are only controversial.

According to him, he has observed some MPs make very critical contributions on nation building in the house, but never given a voice in the news.

This, he suspects, is as a result of some MPs bribing journalists to always have them featured in the news.

Speaking on TV3’s New Day, the former Nantong Constituency MP observed that there is a bias posture of the media towards parliamentarians.

“I have been in Parliament and observed MPs who will always make very valuable statements on the floor never appeared in the news. There are some selected members of parliament who are always captured in the news,” he said.

He also raised some concerns about journalists’ involvement in acts of corruption and called for an immediate holistic approach to fighting corruption. He noted corruption is the bane of Ghana’s development.

“Let’s not focus only on political corruption, civil servants are involved in huge corruption, the media is involved in huge corruption,” he alleged.

“We have media men in Accra who are having fleet of houses (sic) and you ask the question that how did they come by those fleet of houses (sic) and cars.”

Meanwhile, the former minister is also calling for journalists to be given an opportunity to sit at parliamentary committee meeting, observing that ” hat is where critical issues are discussed”.