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Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr, has dared critics who claim he was on Government�s payroll during the eight-year reign of the New Patriotic Party administration under Ex � President Kufuor, to provide evidence for interrogation. The age-long rumor has resurfaced following allegations that Mr. Baba Jamal, a Deputy Information Minister, had secretly met some selected journalists in an attempt to induce them to push Government�s agenda. Aside being captured saying that government had decided to use funds from the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) to pay those journalists, Mr. Jamal is reported to have told the beneficiaries that they would be given official appointment letters from NYEP so that bank accounts could be opened for them for the unspecified monthly stipend to be transferred into them. Mr. Jamal, who is said to have 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 them was to kill every story which would not be in the supreme interest of the government. Against this background, he is reported to have mentioned the name of Kweku Baako, and alleged that he bought a house for $350,000 because of the package ex-President Kufuor�s administration gave him as one of his favourite journalists for defending the government. Mr. Kweku Baako, who appeared unperturbed about the statement, said he did not receive any offer like that from the Government. He however told Citi News he could not immediately react to the statement since the person who made that statement has not been confirmed to be Mr. Baba Jamal, the Deputy Information Minister. Mr. Baako wants anyone with evidence on any form of support he received from the erstwhile Kufuor administration to provide evidence. �Let those who allege provide some material of evidential value then we can interrogate that. But really, it is not a new rumor. When the NPP was in office, that was said, and it wasn�t just about Kweku Baako. It was also about the coffee shop mafia. And since the NPP exited from office, it is still being peddled around. But I am relaxed because I know it cannot be true. If anybody anywhere has evidence to the effect that public funds were diverted for the personal use or benefits of Kweku Baako, that person is at liberty to provide the evidence and then we move on from there� he said. According to him, the perception that some journalists are induced by politicians to do their bidding can be addressed when people audaciously provide evidence to prove their claims. �The rumor and the perception have been around for a long time but the challenge is for those who peddle these things to provide material of evidential value so we can interrogate such cases. Otherwise, people like us have been targets of that. So I ask people whether it was the eight years of the NPP rule that I got compromised as a journalist. How about the many years that I have been a journalist when the gun was ruling, when the NDC constitutional period was ruling and I was fighting them. Who was paying me to undertake those sacrificial things I was doing? I was going to court and jail in and out. Who was paying me? Did it have to take the NPP to come into office for me to be paid? I have good answers to all those questions about my properties be it car, houses or other things. But I don�t discuss such things on radio stations, rallies or anywhere else� he noted. Commenting on the �mysterious journalists� bribery tape�, Mr. Baako said his major concern now was the fact that his name has been mentioned in the recording. �I have heard bits if the recording and I have heard my name which is my concern. And I have heard people suggest that at least one of the voices on it is that of my good friend Baba Jamal. And at this stage, it will be premature to react since Baba Jamal is denying that it is his voice and no one has categorically authenticated whose voice is it. So what would I be reacting to and against who? Those calling for investigations into this particular recording and its content are raising a legitimate point. Maybe we should encourage it and set up a probe. And if the probe authenticates whose voice it is, we can put a face or a body to the voice and then I can proceed to contest that person on the appropriate platform. But with him denying and nobody having authenticated it, it will be really ludicrous for me to go there fighting� he noted.