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Opinions of Saturday, 18 May 2019

Columnist: Mashoud Bawa

Multimedia Group’s stupid spin on A-G Court response about Zoomlion an attempt to repackage Manasseh

Manasseh Azure Awuni Manasseh Azure Awuni

Multimedia Group’s mischief, malice and hatred for the Jospong brand has further been exposed when they rushed to publish as though the contents of the Auditor General’s lawyer’s response to Zoomlion’s appeal against the A-G’s decision of surcharge and disallowances on the company was a determination of the high court.

It is intriguing to refresh your minds that Zoomlion’s first press release in response to myjoyonline.com’s first publication of the A-G’s report indicated that the company was even not given the opportunity to respond or make clarifications to the A-G’s so-called conjured findings.

Even before that A-G’s report was made public, Joy FM’s Manasseh Azure Awuni who recently sought asylum for God knows who was chasing him in South Africa, had published excerpts of the report that indicted Zoomlion and made copies available to other media for onward publication without even cross-checking from the company. Manasseh and Multimedia so belief the A-G to the extent that he may never make erroneous judgements but the courts are there to settle that so why are they in a hurry?

Multimedia Group, specifically Joy FM and www.myjoyonline,com have given to Manasseh the forum to destroy so many meaningful businesses and reputations in Ghana including H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, Former President John Dramani Mahama, Roland Agambire of the Agams Group and Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong, owner of Zoomlion Ghana Limited and the Jospong Group of Companies.

The best you can do with and for this your Manasseh is to advise him to exercise caution and ensure due diligence is done to every piece he brings on for publication that sounds controversial and has the propensity to tarnish images.

The Akans will say that “any adult who watches unconcerned for children to eat a python will not be left out in the event that python eaters are to be countered”. In the same vein, people will not single Manasseh and or Abubakar Ibrahim and address them in cases relating to stories they file on your platform but the group as a whole.

I will be generous enough to urged readers to read in detail excerpts of the Zoomlion press release which actually has triggered my thoughts about this Multimedia Group and Manasseh Awuni’s consistent mischief and hatred for the Jospong brand.

The banner headline “Auditor-General describes Zoomlion as ‘fraudulent, drain on country’ ” which came from www.myjoyonline.com and is replicated on several other media portals purported to be compiled by one Abubakar Ibrahim was orchestrated by their grand gang at Multimedia to court public sympathy for Manasseh for his recent gaffe on his alarmist documentary on a so-called militia group call De-Eye Group training at the Osu Castle which has badly impacted on both multimedia and Manasseh’s image.

Otherwise, how does a mere reply or response filed by the Lawyers for the Auditor General to an appeal filed by Zoomlion against the A- G’s decision to surcharge and disallow certain payments made to Zoomlion Ghana Limited in respect of contracts the company had executed invite such perilous conclusion as it were in the Ibrahim/myjoyonline.com article that Zoomlion is fraudulent and a drain on the state?

In fact, anybody who meant well for this country cannot conclude that in spite of Zoomlion’s massive infrastructural investment and its leading position in job creation in Ghana and abroad including the huge taxes the company and its staff pay to this state is a drain. The work of Zoomlion has being more beneficial to Ghana than one can imagine.

As a student of current affairs, I recount the recent 20 million United State Dollar investment the company unveiled at Old Fadama which was commissioned by the Vice President Dr, Mahamadu Bawumia known as the Integrated Recycling and Compost Plant (iReCop) with the capacity to process over 90% of all waste it receives in a day and engages not less than 5000 youth, a facility many regional ministers and the parliamentary select committee on local government have lauded and urged Zoomlion to replicate it in the rest of the regions. Ask Multimedia what is their contribution in highlighting that effort of the businessman. They looked unconcerned and turn around to do their mischief.

I also recount the singular effort of 500 new skip and compaction trucks with ten street sweepers the company brought into Ghana and distributed among Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the spate of less than a year to help achieve the president’s vision of a cleanest Ghana by the end of his tenure, the 13 million Euro waste water treatment plant under construction in Kumasi together with the Kumasi Compost and Recycling Plant (KCARP) which is also 90% complete among others, so it is preposterous and for want of a better word sheer buffoonery for the Auditor General or any journalist or media house to draw such superficial conclusion that the company is fraudulent and a drain on the state. The A-G is human and errs too like any other human being.

Indeed, the current Zoomlion statement puts it in an unambiguous position in “We wish to state that the tone of the publication is laced with mischief, actuated by malice and calculated to lower the standing of the company and injure the hard-earned reputation of Zoomlion” that is what I see clearly in that publication of myjoyonline.com.

The earlier the writer and myjoyonline.com learned that a response in court to an application is just a mere opinion and does not constitute the decision of the court the better for them as their early jubilation would fall flat if the court decides otherwise on the case as said again by Zoomlion in their statement. “We wish to reaffirm our belief in the judicial process and we will uphold our position for the entirety of this case”.

The Gurune proverb that “if the penis is longer than the thigh of a man, it becomes nothing more than a rope when it comes to sex” is what I will leave with Multimedia and their journalists that if you think you know and you have better investigators who can spin and blow issues out of proportion beware that in matters of the court the judges themselves cannot determine the outcomes until the matter travels to its full length.

As a media house therefore, if you do not exercise restrain your supposed heavy name and leading brand you rely on will soon go down with some of your men such as Manasseh and Ibrahim. Yes, your brand will become useless like the penis that is longer than the thigh in the Gurune proverb.

In a short while, I will provide in another article a chronological review of how Manasseh and the Multimedia Group through Joy FM and myjoyonline.com and others have always looked out for negative issues for the purposes of their mischief, malice and hatred against the Jospong Group of Companies, Zoomlion and the owner Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong against the positive strides they have chalked over years.

The writer is an Environmental Sanitation enthusiast based in Tamale.