<<Print>>

The National Media Commission (NMC) has confirmed that it has received a petition from the government over the ‘Castle militia’ documentary produced by the Multimedia Group and Manasseh Azure, an investigative journalist of the group.

The Chairman of the NMC, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, who confirmed this to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, said per the mandate of the NMC, the complaints from the government would be forwarded to the Multimedia Group and Azuri “and they will have seven days to respond”.

He further explained that upon receipt of the responses to the complaints, the NMC would have to forward same to the complainants, “and where they find the explanations satisfactory, the case will end there”.

However, he said, should the complainant insist that the matter be investigated, the NMC would then fix a date for hearing and make its preliminary comments known as to the way forward.

“As it stands now, we are strictly going by the laid down procedures because we do not want to prejudice the case in favour of one party against the other, so we will wait until we fully exhaust the process,” he said.

The petition

The petition, dated March 13, 2019, and signed by the Minister of Information, Mr. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, was addressed to the Chairman of the NMC.

It said: “Respectfully, the Government of Ghana brings this complaint pursuant to Article 167(b) of the 1992 Constitution, as well as Section 2(1) (b) of the National Media Commission Act, 1993 (Act 449), and invites you to investigate the publication, the subject matter of this complaint.