Television show pulled

March 25, 1998

Toronto (Free Expression Ghana/IFEX) - The television programme "Kwaku One-on-One" has been suspended since 21 January 1998.

Hosted by Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, one of Ghana's foremost radio and TV presenters, the show was cut following a controversial interview with Mr. Justice Daniel Francis Annan, the Speaker of Ghana's Parliament, on Ghana Television (GTV). During the interview, Annan fumbled a question regarding the succession of President Jerry John Rawlings, scheduled to give up his post at the end of his second term in the year 2000. The 1992 Constitution of Ghana allows a maximum of two 4-year terms in office.

Annan's handling of this question during the interview upset a section of the private media who took it as an indication that the National Democratic Conference (NDC) government plans to keep Rawlings in power, despite the fact that he will have already completed two terms in office. According to FXG, the order to cut the programme came from the Castle (the seat of government).

In response to public disapproval of the suspension of "Kwaku One-on- One", the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) explained that the programme had been cut because the producers, GABCOM, had failed to sign a contract with the GBC. Sakyi-Addo rejected this explanation, noting that his show, a joint project between the GBC and GABCOM, had been launched based on an agreement that GABCOM was to be responsible for its setting, location and production while GTV was to provide it with air- time and a studio. According to information provided by Sakyi-Addo, a contract has been drafted and is in the possession of GTV's legal department waiting to be signed. As he put it: "If they saw it fit to begin the programme without a contract in the first place then why was it necessary later on to take it off after the third in the series following a lot of publicity?"

Sakyi-Addo stated that the order to cut his show was given by a highly-placed government official in touch with the President. This official apparently informed the Minister of Communications that the President did not want to see Sakyi-Addo's face on television. Sakyi- Addo claims that attempts were even made to suppress his show before it started, and that the Director-General of the GBC defied the order. 'Kwaku One-On-One' was a popular current affairs programme which was aired on Saturdays and later shifted to Wednesdays.

BACKGROUND: This is not the first time that a television show has been taken off the air for being too critical of the government or representing it in a bad light. In 1993, a GBC program, "Talking Point", was cut because Dr. Kofi Apraku, an eminent Ghanaian economist and current member of Ghana's Parliament, criticized the government's budget on air. Similarly, Professor George B.N. Ayittey was blacklisted by the state-owned media in 1994 for being too critical on air of the government's investment policy.

24 March 1998. SOURCE: Free Expression Ghana, Accra.

For further information, contact Joe Baidoe-Ansah, Emmanuel Larbi Amoah or Kodzo Chapman at Free Expression Ghana, Ghana International Press Centre, 5 New Town Loop, near Nkrumah Circle, P.O. Box 207, Accra, Ghana, tel: +233 21 229875, fax: +233 21 237004, e-mail: freedom@africaonline.com.gh

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