Why GBC Boss Was Fired

As the directors of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) have assembled at Ho, the Volta regional capital to deliberate on the colossal shortcomings of the corporation and to strategise on the way forward, the National Media Commission has sacked its Director-General (D-G).

Seth Ago Adjetey, the Director General of GBC, and the villain in, a war of the gods that has been raging for the past one year, has finally been vanquished and his blood spilled to appease the gods. Ms Eva Lokko has been appointed the new Director-General with effect from September 2, 2002.

The National Media Commission (NMC), which dismissed the former GBC boss, said in a press release that it took the decision "in consultation with the President."

When interviewed by this reporter, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo, the Executive Secretary of the NMC, said no reason has to be assigned for Mr Ago Adjetey's dismissal, implying that they have the constitutional backing to take such a decision if it is found appropriate.

"We don't have to assign any reason for his dismissal, if a man is sacked, he is sacked," he was blunt.

Following workers' agitation and powerful media exposures, especially by Chronicle, of malfeasance, fraudulent award of contracts, misappropriation and gross incompetence raging at the nation's broadcasting house, the Media Commission set out to investigate the corporation.

The sacking of Mr Ago Adjetey is the result of the laborious work undertaken by the commission that lasted over five months.

Among the tons of charges that stood in the name of the GBC D-G were: the fraudulent award of a ?1.3billion rehabilitation contract that was dribbled past management and the board; the alleged contrivance with certain unknown persons to smuggle a radio transmitter into the country without the requisite duty and the criminal inflation of two laptop computers.

Insiders say what appears to have weighed most against the dismissed GBC boss is a bogus contract he signed with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) with regard to the rebroadcast of BBC on FM and the monitoring of same, which turned out to overburden the corporation.

Apart from the Media Commission, two other well -placed state institutions, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Auditor General are still prying into the financial affairs of GBC.

In his final days, when Mr Adjetey had reached the unimaginable depths of incompetence; he slighted GBC management when he sheepishly followed the man who has been described by some in the spin house as a modern-day carpetbagger to the Ministry of Information where he was virtually ordered to undertake a public relations venture for the NPP government in a programme whose real origin is dodgy.

(Stay tuned for details of this deal)

Mr Adjetey made nonsense of the constitutional provision of the media's non-interference by government by succumbing to manipulations by the Castle and the Ministry in a programme, Dialogue with the Nation, that is slated to hit the screen in mid September. With the appointment of Ms Eva Lokko all is expected to be calm at GBC.

Ms Lokko holds two Msc Degrees in Electrical Engineering and Intelligent Management Systems and has worked as a consultant in the UK and the United States.

Now it is hoped that those who have been pontificating trivia at GBC, among them those ostriches who saw nothing wrong with the sordid happenings, and those whose certificates have gotten stuck in the printing machine will learn lessons from the fate of the Ga 'mafia' boss.