Gov’t pays journalists to focus on NPP crisis – Blay

The New Patriotic Party is claiming some journalists have been paid whopping sums of money by the John Mahama administration to keep their focus on the internal happenings of the NPP, as opposed to bad governance the people have been subjected to under the seven-year rule of the NDC government.

The acting Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Freddie Blay, made these comments at a press conference held at the NPP headquarters on Friday, to denounce what it claimed “the State-sponsored attacks on the New Patriotic Party”, in the wake of the dawn raid at the party’s headquarters on Monday, November 23.

According to the NPP Chairman, instead of the media focusing its attention on the incompetent Mahama administration, which has brought in its wake worsening economic hardships, rising levels of unemployment, high cost of living, a rapidly depreciating currency, ‘dumsor’, low business and consumer confidence in the economy, and growing levels of despondency amongst the populace, the media, surprisingly, has its focus rather on the opposition.

“These times, however, some journalists, by no means all, are paid to abandon their ethics and adopt a culture of silence over the way our country is being incompetently managed, keeping their attention rather on making the opposition unduly unpopular,” he said.

To President Mahama, Blay urged him to focus his energies on solving the myriad of problems he had placed on the people of Ghana, as opposed to his constant fixation on the NPP.

“The country is faced with serious challenges. We will suggest that President Mahama and his people redirect their energies towards at least attempting to confront those challenges. Hiring hoodlums, sending armed men, using state security apparatus to harass, intimidate, and provoke reprisal attacks is cheap, archaic and unimaginative!” he stressed.

“The NPP grossly deplores and condemns these crude tactics by powerful people of the State to create a constant state of diversion from the mountain of problems facing the country. We call on the good people of Ghana to join us to resist these growing threats to our democracy by the forces of darkness.”

To the State security agencies, including the Military high command, the Ghana Police Service and the Office of National Security, the NPP Chairman urged these institutions to conduct full-scale investigations into how and why and under whose authorization their own forces were involved in an attack on the offices of the opposition.

“The investigations must be conducted professionally, transparently, and without political interference or bias. Anyone who participated in the planning and execution of this attack must be held accountable. We must end this here, today,” he added.

Meanwhile, the police and the military have denied any involvement in the raid at the party’s headquarters.