Castle Stopped GBC From covering CP scandal at PAC

By Sammy Agyei

The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Television (GBC-TV), the nation's broadcaster which was billed to cover all the sittings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament was missed in action on Wednesday when the committee was to sit on the Construction Pioneers (CP) case.

Snippets of information picked from the corridors of the government indicate the failure of the GBC to cover the event was orchestrated from the seat of government, Castle.

But during a meeting with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday, Management of the GBC-TV claimed they were not able to cover the sitting because one of their OB Vans was out of town. Our information indicates that members of the committee were a bit skeptical about the excuse given by the national broadcaster, wondering why they could not communicate this to the PAC which was expecting them to be present during their sitting.

A deep throat in the Mills-Mahama led government who shuttle between the Castle and Parliament revealed to this paper before the committee sitting on Wednesday morning that GBC-Television would not be there in the afternoon to transmit the sitting to the Ghanaian public and the outside world.

According to our source, the revelation at the PAC sitting on the payment to the CP is becoming a disgrace to the Mills government because a section of Ghanaians are reading corruption and malfeasance into it, especially the opposition parties and their supporters.

“Findings from the CP judgement debt maybe a powerful campaign tool for the opposition, hence all means to stop GBC-TV from telecasting the proceedings live to the public”, he said. Through the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament, a €94 million judgment debt paid to the CP for no work done by the Mills-Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government was uncovered.

Functionaries of the NDC believe the scandal is running down the Mills-Mahama government, and could have negative effect on it s determination to seek a second term mandate from the electorate in the December polls.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC), while in government from 1993 to 2000, never had public sitting to account to Ghanaians what the Ministries, MMDCs and other public agencies were doing with the Ghanaian taxpayers' money.

After wining power in 2000, the New Patriotic Party government led by President Kufuor saw the need to bring everything to the public domain and through the effort of then Majority Leader and Member for Akyem Swedru, Felix Owusu Adjapong, Sallas Mensah, then Member of Parliament for Upper West Akyem in the Eastern Region, was resourced to become the first chairman of the Public Account Committee.

Since then the PAC has being sitting in public to let all the public agencies account for how they utilize the public funds.