General News of Thursday, 20 August 2020
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2020-08-20How Mahama govt used state funds to sponsor anti-Free SHS campaign – Kweku Baako
Editor-in-Chief of New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako
Under the Mahama regime, there was a state-sponsored campaign to discredit Akufo-Addo’s Free SHS programme, Kweku Baako is alleging.
Baako asserts that the government of Mahama did not only oppose the program but they followed through with adverts on media platforms to make it unpopular.
The veteran journalist says his newspaper New Crusading Guide were among
Read full articlethe media houses that benefitted from the media campaign.
“When the NDC said they didn’t like the Free SHS, they advertised against it. They formed a certain company from some Civil Society group and were running adverts under the guise of that company but we knew where the monies were coming from. Peace FM knows. A presidential staffer was the cash man and it wasn’t his pocket money. They brought one or two adverts to my paper and that’s how I got to know” Baako said on Peace FM.
Kweku Baako was lamenting the government’s failure to propagate what he thinks are good works it has done.
Baako warned the government its unwillingness to advertise its achievement could undo them in the upcoming elections.
Baako said he has assessed a number of documents that highlight the strides made by the Akufo-Addo led administration but it is not his duty to speak about them.
He chided the government and its communicators for not being proactive.
“When you make a case of inflated project, you don’t stop there, you prove it. This administration has subjected some of the projects to value for money audit and some turned out okay, others were not okay. When you do investigations and you get the report, make it public. I have a copy of the report on the cocoa roads but I’m not a government spokesperson. It is not my duty to be doing what the government ought to do for itself.
“Clearly, there were some terrible things, relative to that cocoa roads project. I have a copy and I have gone through it. When it comes to things like the cost of projects, I like to have a very focused and factual intercourse”.
