Folks, in my post titled “How can Ghana be built with this mentality?” I addressed issues that I considered to be pertinent to our country’s development challenges. I virtually framed much around comments attributed to Dr. Clement Apaak (a member of the Presidential staff) and panned him as such. I wrote that opinion piece for discussion.
In a quick reaction, Dr. Apaak shot an e-mail to me to state his side of the matter, which I did respond to and asked his permission to post his comments verbatim to enrich the discussion prompted by my original post. Here is what he sent to me:
“I have always taken delight in reading your write-ups, and know fully well that you are usually fair to the facts and the context. Clearly, anyone who listened to me on the Newsfile program, would know for a fact that my comments were never in relation to the implementation of the report. The answer I gave to [Kweku] Baako was in relation to the delay in releasing the report to the public. I never said anything about implementation.
The above notwithstanding, JOY chose to misrepresent me, and sought to create the impression that PV's passing was the end of the all-important Senchi consensus! How could I say or suggest such a thing?
I have registered my protest with JOY and will ask that you listen to the tape which is posted on JoyFM's UTUBE site to hear exactly what I said. I suspect you understand why someone will try to create the impression that I said what is being attributed to me. Keep the good work going. Regards”.
My Comments
In my response to Dr. Apaak, I assured him that my post was geared toward our discussing the fundamental issues related to the challenges facing the government and how it needs to redouble its efforts to tackle them. Thus, any comment from any government functionary that creates a negative impression about efforts being made won’t be in the government’s own interest.
Let me say here that Dr. Apaak earned my respect for reacting to my post the way he did, giving us his version and urging us to listen to it on YouTube so we can distinguish his words from what MyJoyOnline published.
Clearly, the impression created is that MyJoyOnline twisted issues to serve purposes best known to it, an interesting angle from which to view issues, especially within the context of accusations against MyJoyOnline of doing anti-NDC/government politics. Only those at MyJoyOnline can best know what their agenda is. As for me, I read news reports closely and glean from them ideas with which to inform my understanding of goings-on in the country.
For the government to regain public goodwill, trust and support; it has to do what it has been placed in office to do. No complaints will help it as such. It should just go ahead to do the right thing as expeditiously as needed and disregard those doing “rogue” politics. By its good performance, it will surely disarm them. Anything short of that will leave it vulnerable and susceptible to negative propaganda.
