Journalists dismayed at ?50m bribery scandal

The Federation of Environmental Journalists (FEJ) on Wednesday expressed dismay over the ?50m alleged bribery scandal involving a group of journalists led by Timothy Appau and a Kumasi Waste Management Company which sought to link FEJ to the scandal.

Consequently, it has appealed to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to take up the issue and investigate it thoroughly. These were contained in a statement issued by the FEJ and signed by its acting president, Stephen Egyinam Quarm.

The statement said Timothy Apau is not a member of the Federation and FEJ was therefore hurt by the publication in an Accra private daily and the extensive airplay the news item had received. The statement said FEJ is a professional organisation registered in Ghana with both national and international affiliations and has been in existence since 1997 and known to the GJA.

It stated that the Federation had a chapter at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) adding that programmes and activities of the chapter and other chapters were sanctioned by the National Executive Council. “The national executive of FEJ has not sanctioned any such investigations involving the Kumasi Waste Limited,” the statement said.

While FEJ viewed the bribery allegations as serious and an affront to the journalism profession, it regretted that The Statesman did not cross-check from it before publishing the story. The Federation, the statement said, was conducting its own investigations to ascertain whether any of its members at the GIJ chapter were involved in the scandal.