Office of the President denies newspaper allegation

Accra, 4 Aug, GNA - The Office of the President, on Monday said media reports that President John Evans Atta Mills and his administration did not favour the appointment of Professor Ernest Aryeetey, as new Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, were untrue.

Mr Koku Anyidoho, Head of Communications at the Presidency, said that the allegation by a section of the media that President Mills deliberately did not attend Prof Aryeetey's investiture last Monday was untrue.


He explained to GNA in Accra on Wednesday that the invitation to President Mills to attend the function did not come early for the President to be able to honour.


He cited that an Accra newspaper on Tuesday reported that "the induction of the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana on Monday, was deprived of government representation, with President John Evans Atta Mills visibly absent.


"Not even the Minister of Education, Alex Tettey-Enyo, who it was thought could have represented government, was in attendance, an anomaly which left people to engage in all manner of mental conjectures".


Mr. Anyidoho said that the impression created by the paper that the President snubbed the University was totally wrong.

He said that the President's invitation letter, dated July 30, 2010 was received at the Castle on August 2, 2010, the day of the event.


"It is impossible for the President, who agreed to other engagements to honour such invitation. There is no reason for the President to turn down such an invitation from the nation's premier university where he was educated and lectured for 25 years, " Mr Anyidoho said.


He explained that the President's schedule is normally planned for weeks before events take place, and it is therefore difficult for him to have attended the event since he had not planned for it.


Mr. Anyidoho described the impression created by the paper as unfortunate, and called for media circumspection.


"It is unfortunate that the university delayed in delivering the invitation," he said, adding that "the President would have honoured it if the invitation came when it ought to have come."