Posted on: wwwdailyguideghana.com
Mohammed Ahmed Baba Jamal (in political suit)is a Deputy Minister of Information in Ghana.
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday August 11, 2011.
Beleaguered Deputy Minister of Information, Mohammed Ahmed Baba Jamal’s attempt to downplay his infamous order to Information Services Department (ISD) staff to embellish their stories in order to make the government look good in the eyes of the public has backfired.
He released a statement yesterday admitting he once made such comments during a nationwide tour but said it was “a harmless joke”.
However, Baba Jamal who once declared Jihad on Akwatia over a Parliamentary seat could not be taken serious on the ‘joke’ explanation since on the same tape recording he is heard loud threatening to sack workers of the ISD if they fail to project the government in good light no matter the circumstance.
A copy of the recording which is in the possession of DAILY GUIDE, the Deputy Information Minister had said the core duty of the workers is to make government look good at all cost even if it means peddling falsehood or lying.
To Baba Jamal, NDC must stay in power by hook or crook, and he will do everything including dismissing innocent workers to achieve the diabolic agenda.
“Yours is to make government look good, whatever the circumstance. If the government buys sheep and gives it as a gift, you are free to say it is a cow. You are free to say that.
“If the colour of the sheep is black, you can say it was a white colourful cow, why do you think that we employ commentators” he quizzed rhetorically to the amusement of the workers who were heard giggling.
In his news release, Baba Jamal said the Ministry of Information has “absolutely no policy and strategy to use the ISD or any of its agencies to embellish or put out untruths as it is being accused”.
Baba Jamal emphasized that a recent statement he made during an open interaction with staff of the ISD, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives and the media after a working tour of the Greater Accra Region where he claimed he cracked the black sheep, white sheep joke was nothing more than that – “a harmless joke.”
Mr. Jamal said that was why he (Jamal) and his audience could be heard “having a hearty laugh when he made the statement.”
He claimed that “the essence of my statement was rather a call for the ethics and the mission of the ISD which is to disseminate government information and collect feedback from the people to be respected and that those who did not do that would be sanctioned.”
Mr. Jamal said he was “not surprised that a strange renewed interest has been given to this particular statement made over a month ago so my accusers would still find something negative to throw at me seeing that their recent concocted tape and fabricated tale of bribery involving me dishing out NYEP cash to journalists through non-existent bank accounts had collapsed.”
Mr. Jamal said “perhaps the joke was inappropriate” but justified it with a Ghanaian Chronicle issue of Thursday June 26, 2008 where the paper quoted then Minister of Information Asamoah Boateng of urging ISD staff to help explain government policies to the public.
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