<<Print>>

Deputy Minister of Information, Baba Jamal, says the voice on a mystery audio tape linked to him which was captured during a purported meeting held with a selected group of journalists sympathetic to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) at Bolgatanga in the Upper East region, is certainly a sham. The audio tape recording allegedly captures Baba Jamal promising the journalists huge sums of money should they dance to the tune of government. But the Deputy Minister says there is no truth in the allegations insisting that the voice is just a spurious imitation of him. The Daily Guide newspaper on Wednesday claimed it has in its possession a copy of a secret recording which supposedly exposes the desperation of the ruling NDC to win power by wooing journalists with huge sums of money to pursue the agenda of the Mills-led government. According to the publication, the audio tape reveals Hon. Baba Jamal telling the selected group of journalists that the government had decided to use funds from the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) to pay them. Jamal, who promised a better package for the journalists should they propagate the agenda of the government to enable it to win the 2012 elections, said all that government required from the selected journalists was to kill every story which would not be in the supreme interest of the government. The speaker, on the almost six-minute tape recording, enjoined the journalists at the meeting to be ready to discard stories that would portray the party in a bad light and rather concentrate on the positive sides. He implored them to be battle-ready to even overturn disparaging stories about the government and present it in a way that would be palatable to the public so that the government�s chances of retaining power in the forthcoming polls would not become a mirage. The deputy Information Minister urged the journalists at the meeting not to entertain any fears because the NDC government was not the first government to do that. He even alleged that the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) did same when it was in government.