Ellembelle: Group Debunks MPs Name-Wiping Report

A group calling itself Voice of Buah (VOB) has labelled as falsehood a recent report published on Modernghana.com titled "Angry Basake Youth Wipe-Off Armah Buah's Name From Toilet Building."

In a rejoinder signed by the group's coordinator and forwarded to the Western Regional correspondent of Modernghana.com, Lord Kweku Sekyi, the group described the story as lacking facts and demanded an apology from the author for factual errors.

Below is the full statement released by VOB:

LETTER TO JOURNALIST DANIEL KAKU

Dear Daniel,

Recently we have followed your write up published on 23rd May 2019, titled "Angry Basake Youth Wipe-Off Armah Buah's Name From Toilet Building" which is skewed towards lies and purported distorted truths and are usually baseless with no single fact.

The gravity of falsehood with which you present your stories like that of the Basake story you published on the Modern Ghana website questions your neutrality, personal and integrity as a Journalist.

Your attitude only reminds us of a story of a regular palm wine addict in a village who would bring out his calabash the moment he sees you are in hold of one of those gallons for collecting palm wine.

In fact, he does that without doing due diligence to ascertain whether or not your gallon contains his favorite local wine.

We have often ignored your lies and inaccuracies with the excuse that you must be given the room to learn. Invariably, however, it seems this is not a mistake but a calculated attempt to muddy the waters and send our Honourable MP to the cleaners on many pro NPP platforms such as "Nzema Citizen Journalism" among others.

Let it be noted by your readers that, the Basake toilet facility had Zero funding from the District Assembly. The Assembly only supervised the project as clarified by the current Engineer and Former DCE. As the Engineer explained. “On records it is written as MP/DACF instead of MPDACF, meaning Member of Parliament allocation of District Assembly Common Fund. Because the fund itself is called District Assembly Common Fund that is the reasons why the management or secretariat is called District Assembly Common Fund Administration."

As a Journalist, if you had taken the responsibility that defines your profession to check the facts you wouldn’t have drawn the conclusion you did and lied to the world.

The Basake toilet had Zero funding from the DACF. The Assembly only supervised the project.

If you cared to check with the assembly as a journalist you wouldn’t have told the world this lie.

Kindly be advised that the basic principle of journalism is fact-checking; you check your facts and check it again. So check your facts before publishing.

More importantly, we'd beseech your reputable news agency to have some checks on your news articles before you bring their reputation to disdain. This naturally suggests that someone was sleeping on duty and has refused to do the needful.

By this release, we wish to ask that you write a rejoinder to correct the anomalies you've created and let discerning readers make judgments on their own rather than painting our Honourable MP black on a daily basis because political leadership has changed.

Remember the saying that “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Thank you.

Signed,

Patrick Noah Mensah (Coordinator, Voice of Buah)