Recent media reports have pointed to acts of corruption and waste of state funds and, as is expected, journalists are leading the public discussions on the matter.
The personalities involved in the exploitation allegations include the Commissioner for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, CHRAJ, Ms Lauretta Lamptey, who stands accused of blowing taxpayers’ money on expensive accommodation.
Some officers at the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department have also been nabbed for allegedly stealing public funds through phony pension deals.
The sacked Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Alhaji Alhassan Moro and a number of regional and district directors of the scheme are currently under investigation for alleged thievery and bribery.
And the interesting thing about the NSS scandal is that some of the said sticky-fingered directors reportedly attempted to bribe the investigating officials with goats and smocks! The Akans will say in Twi, mponkyi ni batakare akase (to wit, fat goats and big smocks).
Well, the good news is that the officers rejected the cash-livestock-and-clothes bribe and caught the NSS officials.
Ei, ei, ei. I nearly forgot-o-o-o! Just this week – Wednesday, October 15, 2014 to be precise, the Ghanaian Times reported on its front page that the police had picked up 14 teachers for allegedly altering figures on their pay-slips in order to access loans from the Teachers Fund.
These are just a few of the reported cases of corruption in the last few months, so obviously corruption has hit Ghana very hard and I mean very, very, hard. And that calls for serious “watchdogging” by the media.
But there is a big problem that must be cleared before journalists can EFFECTIVELY and EFFICIENTLY help the state to catch all the corrupt groups and individuals. And that PROBLEM is the issue of gifts for journalists, popularly known in Ghana as SOLI!
A recent poll conducted by Insight and Media Source revealed that 40 per cent of journalists are MORE LIKELY to use a press release in a story if it is accompanied by a gift. The report on the poll was credited to the International Journalists' Network (Ijnet).
The question is: Should journalists, especially those in developing countries like Ghana, be allowed to accept gifts because they are underpaid?
According to a report posted on editorsweblog.org on April 17, 2007 journalists from developing countries denied that there were any ethical problems with accepting gifts.
Commenting journalists from many different countries agreed that accepting gifts was wrong and could sway practitioners’ neutrality and lead them to write stories they would otherwise not have written. However, several comments revealed that in practice, ethics did not always reflect in the matter of gift taking.
According to the report, one person who commented in Cameroun said the practice of accepting gifts is so common it has a name: ngombo. “Ngombo is normal,” he said.
“On many occasions organisers of events who failed to give Ngombo would not have their stories published or broadcast.” He said that was the same for state media and independent journalists.
Dr. Khin Myint Oo, an author from Myanmar, said gift-giving was rampant there as well. Businessmen and others give journalists small gifts to announce new products, etc. and many journalists happily accept and write stories in return.
A Sri Lankan who commented in the poll said there were three categories of journalists there: those who refuse gifts entirely, those who accept gifts but try not to let them influence stories, and those who demand gifts – “mostly money or alcohol - but lately had advanced even to sexual favours.”
It was stated in the report that a Nigerian came closer to defending the practice. He stated that gift acceptance was common in Nigeria because journalists were often paid very low wages; some are not paid at all.
“Someone said something about the ethics of the profession, but do you tell that to your wife or hungry kids?” the Nigerian was said to have written.
How do we, as journalists/media, fight corruption when SOLI is flying all over the place? Over to you: Ghana Journalists Association, the National Media Commission, the Media Foundation for West Africa and all the other media groupings in the country!
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