Minister Denies Fight With Journalists

The Deputy Minister for youth and Sports Vincent Oppong Asamoah has reacted to reports that he was angry with some media houses over the negative reports they filed about the just ended Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. In the Thursday August 7, 2014 issue of DAILY GUIDE, it was reported that the minister had denied journalists of some state-owned media their per diem due to the harsh reports they filed about the Ghanaian contingent. In a rejoinder however, Hon Oppong Asamoah debunked these allegations, stating that they couldn�t have been any further from the truth. DAILY GUIDE SPORTS reproduces the rejoinder below: RE: MINISTER FIGHTS JOURNALISTS My attention has been drawn to the story of the Daily Guide of Friday, 8th August 2014, under the banner headline �MINISTER FIGHTS JOURNALISTS�. I wish to state that the said news report contained a lot of inaccuracies and at no point was I given the opportunity to relay my side of the story. In this light, we call on you to publish this rejoinder to inform the sporting public about the true nature of the case. I find it difficult to ascertain what the reporter sought to achieve in Paragraph 3, 4, and 5 of the newspaper story which read as follows: 3. �To him, journalists especially those from the state owned media like the Ghana News Agency were too critical and should have toned down their reports on some of the events, in team Ghana�s camp taking into account their position as state owned agencies. 4. As a result, he instructed the National Sports Authority�s chief accountant to freeze the per diems due GNA reporter, William Dodzi Ezah and William Fiabu, the photographer. 5. Daily Guide Sports investigations indicate that per diems of $2500 each were paid to some freelance journalists. In order to provide the facts of the case and set the records straight, I wish to state as follows: a. that the Games Planning Committee budgeted $57 each for the accredited staff who worked at the games secretariat including one accredited Freelance Journalist who was with the team from the beginning of the competition and also worked at the secretariat. b. that the GNA reporter, William Dodzie Ezah was not accredited by GOC and lived outside the Games village, for this reason could not have qualified for the per diem given to the accredited staff of GOC. c. that I never prevented any Ghanaian Journalist who was at the Games village to bring activities of the country�s representative to the public domain. Accordingly, I would be very appreciative if you could publish all the negative things your paper alleged happened at the Games for the general public since I know there was none. In as much as I appreciate your right to inform the general public about the Ghana�s participation at the XX Commonwealth Games and related matters, the truth must be told at all times.