NMC settles complaint of Pianim against Chronicle

The National Media Commission (NMC) on Thursday directed the Ghanaian Chronicle, a private newspaper, to render an unqualified apology to Mr Kwame Pianim, an economic consultant, over a story carried about him in its March 8 edition.

The newspaper in the story under the heading "Budget Reality Tomorrow" stated among others that the mind taxed to work on the 2001 budget was that of former NPP man turned Atta Mills adviser, Kwame Pianim.

A statement issued in Accra by the NMC also directed the Ghanaian Chronicle to retract the allegations and publish it in two continuous editions "within 21 days from the date hereof."

According to the statement, Mr. Pianim at the settlement meeting indicated that the news story suggested among other things that he was an adviser to Professor Atta Mills, NDC Presidential candidate for the 2000 general elections, had an understanding with the NDC government, was a traitor and a double tongued person.

Nana Kofi Coomson on the other hand denied the allegations and said that the publications were not meant to malign Mr. Pianim. He said they were intelligent deductions from a statement made by Prof. Mills during the electioneering campaign that he would invite Mr. Pianim and others to form an all-inclusive government should he become the President of Ghana.

He said the long silence of Mr. Pianim on that statement by Prof. Mills gave him much room to make the intelligent deductions.

Mr Pianim in his reaction observed that he got to know of that statement, after his return from a trip abroad, through Mr Totobi Quakyi, the then National Security advisor who later apologized on behalf of Prof. Mills for not contacting him before making that statement.

The NMC said after a careful analysis, it found out that the alleged deductions made by the Ghanaian Chronicle were not borne out by the available evidence while the silence of Mr. Pianim could not by any stretch of imagination be construed to mean that he had thereby become adviser to Prof. Mills.