Majority Leader calls for media support

Accra, March 17, GNA - Mr Cletus Apul Avoka, Majority Leader on Wednesday appealed to the media to assist him succeed in his new appointment as the Leader of Government Business in Parliament.

"The media is so powerful, it can make or unmake" he said and added= that their reportage must be spiced with objectivity and fairness. Mr Avoka said this when he interacted with the Parliamentary Press Corp= s to introduce himself to them as partners that would work to entrench parliamentary democracy.

He said he would not use his position to wreak vengeance but to serve Ghana in humility and in unity. "What I hate is ignorant, because it puts people in situation they ma= y not like," he said.

He said journalists must seek for knowledge and make the effort to understand whatever they wanted to report.

Mr Avoka cheerfully said his doors were opened to all to ask him questions if they had doubts about issues discussed on the floor of the house or any other issues of national interest.

"Acquaint yourselves with the Constitution and the Standing Orders of the House," he told journalists and added that unless that was done one might not be in touch with events in the House.

He said The Chronicle's report which recently published that the Minority pressured him (Mr Avoka) to retract a paper he used to buttress a point he made on the floor of the House was not the fact of what happened. He explained that he retracted the paper but not the content of it because the Minority's request that the paper be laid contravened the Standing Orders of the House.

The paper in question was presented at a United Nation Conference the Majority Leader attended in Cape Verde in 2008 which labeled Ghana as a cocaine coast. Mr Avoka's submission was that Atta Mills Presidency was removing Ghana from such mould.

Mr Edwin Arthur, Dean of the Parliamentary Press Corps thanked the majority leader for taking time off his tight schedule to interact with the press corps. 1