"The police said they were reminding the public that it was an offence to ......publish or reproduce any information or statement, rumour which is likely to cause fear and alarm to the public knowing or having reason to believe that the statement, rumour, report is false"."
Well, there is nothing that smacks of causing fear and alarm here Mr. Police officer!!!........and if you can concentrate your investigation on the bribes your colleagues are noted for, I think Ghanas interest will be best served.
Yes! Ghanas interest will be best served because the Ghana Police Service has a poor repution outside our borders.
This is nothing personal, cos I am the son of a retired policeman and most of my childhood days I lived proudly in the sprowling barrackses around the country, where I learned about discipline, cleanliness, punctuality, honesty and good sense of duty. Duty in the overall interest of the nation Ghana. What do we have today? Stinking barracks accross the country with traders, taxi and trotro owners calling themselves policemen. I was in Ghana once and I saw a policeman drive through the red light whiles others were obeying or trying to obey the traffic laws.
Until this publication, I had always gone with anger in me and furious anytime I hear the President has left the country. I have spoken with many who also have the same thinking.And it does not make the case better that the sum has been reduced from $3000 to $500 counting the number of times our President has been out of the country or is going to be out of the country. Ours is a poor country and these types of payments are inadmissible.
It is therefore welcoming that the accountant generals office has come out at long last to clarify the situation.
This is an onerous proof that openness and transparentcy (which the president beleives in), counts in our society of today.
The writer has every right to publish that article and to challenge the authorities to come out with the facts. Who is to blame if the majority of Ghanaians do not know for instance how much the President takes home as salary or how much of their tax money is given out on travel allowances?
It is not the writers nor the publishers fault that Ghanaians lack authentic information from their leaders. They have been reduced to relying on rummours because of the secrecy and manipulations that pervades and characterises public high offices. Quoting from the writer; ".......If the government deems my figures are inaccurate, then I dare them to release an official statement. Failure to do so mean my ?ill gotten? figures is accurate. The only way to win the war on rumor-mongering is transparency. Unfortunately, the Kufuor administration has failed to grasp this basic rule..."
there is every reason to suggest here that he was kept at arms length from the truth and this should not be the case.How would the writer know if he was writing about rummours when no-one would talk to him?
We want to remind Ghanaians that the years of junta tactics in politics is over and the police must understand that the people are their real masters not political leaders, and that is why they are called "Police Service". Playing on the side of political leaders is only a way by the Police to hide their incompetence in battling crime and corruption.
Ghanaians should be alloud to talk freely and with time we will learn to differentiate between facts and as for our leaders they can decide to be informative and transparent or stay the way they are it is up to us to find out. Politicians as long as they feed on public taxes must accept that Ghanaians can get interested in what size of tax monies they are chewing daily and wherever they find themselves.
Since the President finds it distasteful to stay in Ghana and administrate, we want him to know from now on that we will be counting the number of days he spends outside the country and then multiply by $500. One day we will find out if the accounts balance.
Long Live the writer and the Publishers!
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