Radio Gold to Sir John: Present evidence of doctored tape

Management of Radio Gold, Accra-based private FM station, has hit back at New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, on an allegation he made against the station of doctoring a recording of an Oman FM programme.

The NPP scribe reportedly made potentially contemptuous comments against the Supreme Court Justices sitting on the election 2012 petition case.

Justice William Atuguba, President of the panel of judges hearing the election petition on Monday hinted the court was considering the utterance of NPP General Secretary, ‘Sir John’ and others for contempt.

But Sir John later said on the Ekosii Sen programme on Asempa FM that though he was in court on Monday, he never heard his name mentioned in court.

When host of the show, Kwadwo Asare Baffour Acheampong (KABA) attempted to play the voice of justice Atuguba to him, Sir John refused, responding that “please I can’t listen to it now because in this technological age, anyone can doctor a voice purporting to be yours, so let’s wait for me to be called first”.

He accused Radio Gold of "doctoring" the tape on which he is alleged to have made the comment.

But the station's management on Thursday issued a statement demanding a retraction and an apology from Sir John, insisting "the said tape was an authentic recording of the Oman FM programme titled ‘Boiling Point’ aired on Tuesday June 25, 2013 and hosted by one Kwabena Kwakye."

Read the full statement below:

RESPONSE TO ACCUSATIONS MADE BY MR. KWADWO OWUSU AFRIYIE AGAINST RADIO GOLD ON OMAN FM TAPE

It has come to our attention that, the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Mr. Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, has accused Radio Gold several times on various media platforms of doctoring a tape with his voice on it.

We write to make it clear that, we take strong exception as a corporate body to the serious allegation leveled against us and to make known to all concerned that the said tape was an authentic recording of the Oman FM programme titled ‘Boiling Point’ aired on Tuesday June 25, 2013 and hosted by one Kwabena Kwakye. The program was also broadcast live on Ash FM in Kumasi, Oxzy FM in Nsawam, Fiila FM and Northern Star Radio in Tamale. The panelist on the said program included the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Honorable Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, a member of the NPP communication team Nana Boakye and the General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie (Sir John).

To start with, we find it most unfortunate that Mr. Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie instead of speaking directly to the issue at stake, has decided to ignore whether he was on Oman Fm on Tuesday June 25, 2013 or not, and whether he made those submissions or not, but has rather chosen to accuse us of ‘doctoring’ the tape without telling the world exactly what he said on the mentioned date. Also, like every other media organization, it is a known fact that we are not infallible but to accuse us of professional infractions we did not commit is completely unacceptable, as Mr. Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie has gone ahead to accuse Radio Gold of doctoring other tapes as well without providing a shred of evidence to support his accusation.

As much as we sympathize with him because of the predicaments he is likely to suffer if the justices decide to enforce their touchline threat to all like demonstrated lately in the cases of Mr. Atubiga and Mr. Kuranchie. We find Mr. Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John method adopted to run away from his treacherous and unguarded comments about the work and person of the justices hearing the election petition as shameful and unconscionable. Sir John in his desperation to discredit Radio Gold has made references to other intercepted recordings such as the one involving Pastor Mensah Otabil and Mr. Kofi Adams which we played last year, 2012.

We wish to state here that none of those recordings were faked or doctored. It should be instructive to Sir John that in the Kofi Adams case Mr. Gaby Otchere Darko who it seems was leading a conversation with Mr. Adams has never denied it. In any case such mere denials will constitute enough basis to discredit an audio only if we believe Daddy Lumba did not sing “Aben wa ha” because he says so. In the case of Pastor Otabil, we will like to place on record that we never splice or doctored that tape.

We stood our grounds and in our defense played back his other preaching where he admonished his followers to share it with others either by tweeting a phrase, emailing a sentence, or broadcasting a paragraph. Even though the church that should be a store of tolerance felt so aggrieved that it suspended the broadcast of the Living Word series on our airwaves, which for many years we have helped to publicize, we decided as a station not to pursue the matter beyond defending and establishing our integrity because our intention was not to antagonize or embarrass the church.

We cannot accept some Politicians blaming those of us in the media for words they choose to utter and in the process belittling our training and intelligence as professionals in the broadcast industry. We have as a radio station made efforts many times to have Mr. Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie on our platform in order that he clarifies the issue he has raised against us but ‘Sir John’ seems to have conveniently avoided us.

We therefore advise that Mr. Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie either provide proof that we indeed doctored the tape or retract and apologize for making this wild allegation against our organization without basis. And be assured we shall advise ourselves accordingly if the status quo remains.

SIGNED

B.B MENSON.

(ACTING GENERAL MANAGER)