Gov't charged to uphold virtues to provide exemplary leadership

Government has been charged to stand up and uphold virtues that will provide exemplary leadership and governance for Ghanaians.

Delivering the keynote speech at the Adu Boahen 10^th anniversary memorial lecture, veteran journalist Cameron Duodu was critical that qualities of integrity and courage exhibited the late historian and politician Prof. Albert Adu Boahen are not being emulated.

Mr. Duodu pointed to recent events such as the controversial bus branding saga as reflecting a lack of integrity.

He said the nation's history matters if it wants to inspire the younger generations who will enter public service to read some of the researches gathering dust at the ministries where sole sourcing has become the order of the day.

"How can you order an electricity-generating equipment at several millions of dollars on the basis of a single-sourced contract? How can you backdate an invoice for the branding of buses? It is not like there laws are not there," Mr. Duodu questioned.

According to him, there should be a fight to bring integrity to public service through the support of good journalism.

Also speaking at the lecture, Prof. H Kwasi Prempeh was critical of the media, saying although there is media plurality in Ghana, it hasn't impacted on governance as much as it should.

Mr. Prempeh wondered why the growth in media outlets does not lead to a greater accountability in the management of public affairs.

He quoted political scientist Amos Ayimadu who said 'What we have in Ghana today is the overdevelopment of the media and the underdevelopment of journalism.'

"The impressive growth of media in Ghana which has earned us the reputation of having one of the freest media in Africa and globally has not earned us any significant governance dividends. Why despite our free media are we poorly governed as a nation?" Mr. Prempeh said.

He said the investigative research analysis and editorial capacities of the Ghana media houses are generally thin and grossly inadequate, adding that the "Agenda setting and programming content are typically by the daily political news cycle."

However, keynote speaker at the event, veteran journalist, Cameron Duodu indicated that the ownership of much of the media also affects standards.

Mr. Dudo said the society is partly to blame for the falling standards questioning the motives behind media owners and the agenda they sought to set.

He said because the media houses are sustained by advertisement, they are careful not to bite the hands that feed them.

The veteran journalist said this is the reason for the shallowness in new analysis in the country adding that newspaper review in most of the media houses is only "reading headlines."

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim | Email: [email protected]