Your front page publication of Monday, October 5th 2009, captioned GBC Boss Ordered to Proceed on Leave generated a lot of controversy on Radio airwaves across the country with commentators and callers making misleading comments and getting everybody confused about the facts of the story.
I am making this intervention in order to set the records straight, with the hope that it will be given equal prominence. First of all, I don�t think it should be viewed as a punishment or indictment on anybody who is due for leave and takes it. According to the Conditions of Service for Management Staff, Regulation 21, �Members of Management shall be eligible for forty-two (42) working days vacation leave each year.
I have a problem, however, with your use of the words ordered and �proceed� in the caption because they connote a sense of compulsion. The Director General is the only Management member on the GBC Board and he was part of the decision to ensure that Management members took all their leave from 2008. At a Management meeting on 27th August 2009, when a leave roster was drawn, the DG offered to go first, to set an example for the rest of the Management to follow.
The leave roster was subsequently displayed on the notice boards in GBC.
I applaud the newspaper for contacting the Board Chairman for his side of the story and for allegedly making attempts to get to the Director General of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. William Ampem-Darko, but if you had enquired from the Director of Corporate Affairs, the Director of Administration or any Management member, I am sure the speculations about whether the Director General�s leave has anything to do with the recent failure of GBC to telecast the President�s address to the UN General Assembly would not have arisen.
For your information, since Mr. Ampem-Darko took office in July 2007, he had always wanted to take his leave, but the previous Board persuaded him to defer the leave for 2007. In 2008, most Management staff, including the DG, did not take their leave because of the general elections. Mr. Ampem-Darko will, however, be back at post on 2nd November 2009.
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