Electronic Media Monitoring: Summary Of Phone-Ins

GOLD FM PHONE-INS

• The NPP government is swimming in corruption and needs a saviour to help with this canker, more so when the President has denied any corrupt practices involving his ministers.
• The NPP government has really proved that it is insensitive to the plight of Ghanaians it is supposed to defend. The government defended and protected Chris Asher, a convict, until he left the country. Is this the rule of law they preach?
  
  
• If the presenters of Radio Gold have denied a Palaver story that they were invited to the castle for questioning in relation to a call-in-programme in which Kwabena Agyepong participated, why didn’t the presenters call the editor for the source of his story as they are wont to do?
  
  
• The visa contract involving an NPP Member of Parliament is not new in the NPP. MPs and Ministers of the party apply for visas for people at a fee of $10,000. I have evidence to prove this, but I will give it to you off air.

  ADOM FM PHONE-INS

  • Hon. Mumuni should not blame the NPP government for the state of the Tamale General Hospital because, for 20 years, the PNDC/NDC could not rehabilitate the hospital. If they couldn’t secure funds in 20 years, how do they expect the NPP to get funds in 3 years to rehabilitate the hospital?
    
    
  • Baba Jamal should be thankful to President Kufuor and the NPP government for creating an atmosphere that has enabled him to come on air to express his views. During the regime of his own party, the NDC, he wouldn’t dare do this.
    
    
  • Hon. Mumuni shouldn’t have said what he said concerning the Tamale Hospital, claiming the NDC couldn’t secure a loan for the rehabilitation of the hospital. Does he expect the NPP to secure a loan in 3 years?
    
    
  • The rot at Ghana Airways is not only the making of the top hierarchy, but the junior staff as well. All the deals that go on there are the making of those down the ladder who are used to the unprofessional manner of doing things.
    
    
  • There was nothing more the NDC could have offered Ghanaians than what it did, so they (NDC) should sit back and watch the NPP give Ghanaians the good governance they are enjoying.
    
    
  • It is a shame for the Palaver to publish a false story that three presenters of Radio Gold were hauled to the Castle for interrogation. The presenters, who are the mouthpiece of the NDC, have come out to deny the story. The editor should tell Ghanaians where he had his story.
    
    
  • When the NDC was in power, school fees were not as high as they are under the NPP government. Ghanaians have realised the extent of suffering they are going through.
    
    
  • The NDC should be made to know in plain language that the suffering they claim Ghanaians are going through was because of the bad governance and the looting of state coffers that the NDC took Ghanaians through. They should stop complaining.
    
    
  • President Kufuor should start the positive change in his hometown, Kumasi. While passenger buses in Accra are taking three passengers per seat, it is four in Kumasi. Is Kumasi not in Ghana just as Accra?
    
    
  • Sometime ago, ex-President Rawlings said that Ghana does not belong to any one person. So why is the NDC not comfortable being in opposition? Does Ghana belong to them? Baba Jamal should not use a radio station to campaign that we should not vote for the NPP in 2004. When the time comes, we will vote for the NPP as we did in 2000.

  PEACE FM PHONE-INS

  • If the National Reconciliation Commission gave immunity to Chris Asher, why didn’t they give him to the police to be prosecuted for the alleged murder levelled against him after his appearance at the NRC? The Minister of Interior’s answers on this were not convincing.
    
    
  • The NPP used the high cost of living in the country to campaign against the NDC in the 2000 elections. Now that it is in power, the cost of living is unbearable. This is the real “Hwe w’asetena mu na tow aba”.
    
    
  • Market queens are the cause of the high cost of foodstuffs on the market. The government should put in place a mechanism to ensure that middlemen do not control prices of foodstuffs brought to the urban areas.
    
    
  • The editor of the Palaver, Jojo Bruce Quansah, has exposed himself on the lies he uses his paper to propagate against the NPP government. He should apologise to the Castle.
    
    
  • District Assemblies should control the markets so that traders who bring in foodstuffs from farming areas to the urban areas will have a free hand to sell their wares to the public without the interference of the so-called market queens.
    
    
  • The Auditor-General should cause investigations into the circumstances under which officials of the Ghana Commercial Bank went all the way to South Africa to purchase clothing materials when they could have been bought in Ghana. Heads must roll at GCB.
    
    
  • If the government and the Minister of Local Government do not take steps to stop the activities of market queens, the high cost of foodstuffs would be attributed to the government and the NDC would use that against the government in their campaigns.
    
    
  • President Kufuor should be commended for the government’s intention to process 40% of cocoa produced here in Ghana. Even though it has not been implemented, the idea is laudable.
    
    
  • The Editor of the Palaver, Jojo Bruce Quansah, should be arrested and questioned for giving false information against the government that three presenters of Radio Gold were hauled to the Castle for questioning.
    
    
  • What is wrong if ex-President Rawlings was met on arrival from a trip overseas by his supporters, which the media has publicised? There are more important problems that rural dwellers are going through, such as bad roads and lack of potable water, which the media should rather draw government’s attention to.