Pratt says Hanna Tetteh was "naively honest"

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hanna Tetteh, a couple of days ago, was reported to have stated that she will not grant Joy FM an interview on the ongoing xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

She is said to have told the Kokomlemle-based private radio station that she will only speak to Radio Gold, another private radio station based in Laterbiokorshie, a suburb of Accra, and that if Joy FM wished, it should listen to that station for government’s position on the attacks.

Her curt remarks “I will not speak to you. I will be speaking to Radio Gold, if you want listen and take the sound from them,” have been deemed to be "cheeky" by some journalists and members of the opposition New Patriotic Party, especially coming from a cabinet minister who has the ear of the president.

Speaking to the issue on PEACE FM's morning show ‘Kokrokoo’, the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jr believed the Foreign Affairs Minister could have avoided the scathing criticisms being directed at her by rather offering a simple excuse to JOY FM instead of acting brusque in her response.

He however pointed out that with the scores of television and radio stations, coupled with the innumerable newspaper outlets in the country as a result of media pluralism, "dealing with all of them at the same time is a nightmarish experience for any government official…and we need to understand that.

“We have 300 or more radio stations and sometimes you get calls from 10 radio stations and if you will decide to talk to all of them, you will not be able to perform any significant task, and so usually we find ways of running away…Unfortunately, Madam Hanna Tetteh was just too honest…she needn’t have said she was going to grant an interview to any radio station…she should just have given a simple excuse…but she was so naively honest…that is the problem."