Retired Diplomat K.B. Asante has described as “a recipe for confusion”, the president’s appointment of former BBC Presenter Ben Dotse Malor as Communications Director and Advisor at the Presidency.
“I don’t know what a communications director is going to do…I don’t understand it and I don’t think it is necessary”, 90-year-old Asante told Breakfast Show Host Moro Awudu on Time with K.B. Asante on Monday.
According to him, “so far as I know, under the present set up, every ministry has its own information section; the president has one, and people who give information; and in fact spokesmen, when something crops up now and again, you have one of the experts [who] comes to explain. Now I don’t see why we need a communication director”.
In Mr Asante’s view, “what we need now is to be told the truth in a way which will ginger us up to work hard for the future and not to massage the truth or use any clever means of telling us when somebody is dying that he’s only gasping for breath….Spokesperson to do what?”
Mr Asante, who worked in the Nkrumah administration in the first Republic said rather than bring an Outsider to handle communications at the presidency, the Information and Media Relations Ministry which has been handling communications at the Flagstaff house should be allowed to keep doing that job.
He warned that the system could frustrate an Outsider who may lack the necessary political and cultural orientation persisting at the Flagstaff House.
“…You need someone who knows the set up…you want somebody who knows our system, who knows the people. Now if you bring somebody out of the blue and push him in, in my view, it doesn’t work well. There’s a culture there; the people; you don’t know how they work. You come with all your very sophisticated ideas from people who have the resources and you try to do it your way and they resent it. Even if they don’t realise they are resenting it, they don’t like. So in my view, I need to be convinced that it is a good thing”.
Mr Asante is not the first to express concerns about Malor’s appointment.
Communications Professor at the University of Ghana, Audrey Gadzekpo was the first to raise similar concerns in an interview with Radio XYZ’s Strict Proof programme.
Also, Political Activist, Dr Sekou Nkrumah believes the government’s hard work and delivery of its promises will be the best PR for the Mahama administration rather than appointing a Communications Director and Advisor to whitewash the government’s image.
