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Mrs Evelyn Ama Kumi-Richardson, the Bono Regional Minister, has refuted allegations of misappropriation of public funds being speculated in some traditional and social media outlets.

Describing the story as falsehood, Mrs Richardson said the report was orchestrated by her political detractors, a ploy they had adopted to ostensibly unmake and tarnish her reputation and make the government unpopular.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sunyani, the Regional Minister who is the immediate past Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive, condemned the report and appealed to the media to be circumspect by cross-checking their facts well before going to press.

Headlined: “Minister defies Presidential directive: blows GHC33,000.00 on unapproved foreign travels”, according to the report which had gone viral in the social media, allegations against the Minister were contained in the 2018 report of the Auditor General on the management and utilization of District Assemblies’ Common Fund and other statutory funds.

But there was nowhere the Regional Minister was indicted, according to a copy of the 2018 Auditor-General’s Report shown to the GNA.

Mrs Richardson reminded the media of its essential role towards accelerating national development and appealed to practitioners to endeavour to exhibit such obligations in a more decorous manner.

She advised the media to make professionalism their hallmark, look out and shun politicians and miscreants who might use their outlets as a tool to peddle falsehood to defame and smear the image of others just for their selfish interest and gains.

Mrs Richardson said as a new region, the doors of the Bono Regional Coordinating Council were always opened to the media, and called on practitioners to offer constructive but not destructive criticisms, in addition to highlighting and showcasing the numerous economic potentials of the region to attract investors.