<<Print>>

�The real issue is the way government has handled the media fund. The ineptitude, the mediocrity, the incompetence that has informed this whole thing is mind boggling. In principle, I am not against a fund that will capacitate the media but it is how you put the concept and the structures� intimated Kweku Baako. The Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper was reacting to the recent brouhaha over the disbursement of the Media Development Fund instituted by government in 2011; which has led to the distribution of laptops to journalists in the country. This disbursement has become controversial because some media organisations have not received their own share of the laptops. Questions have been raised by media organisations about the whereabouts of GHc1 million Media Development Fund which was pledged by government in 2011. After weeks of enquiries about the whereabouts of the GH�1 million Media Development Fund (MDF), which was allocated in the 2012 budget, it has now been revealed that the entire amount has been spent by the Ministry of Information and Media Relations to buy Rlg laptops for government Public Relation Officers (PROs), the Parliamentary Select Committee on Communication and some media groups. The key characters in the unfolding drama include the Ministry of Information, the Ghana Journalist Associations (GJA), Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA). Though Government has been consistent with its position on the fund stating that the monies have been set aside for the �development� of the Ghanaian media; the management of the fund is still unclear. The other key players are terribly confused as to who agreed that the laptops be purchased and who the recipients of the laptops are. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) which has been leading the campaign to locate the whereabouts of the Fund and how it is being expended has expressed surprise about what the GJA considered as a pressing need. The Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga, answering questions on the issues on the floor of Parliament disclosed that leadership of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) and other stakeholders, met with government and requested for laptops; since it was one of their pressing needs. Kweku Baako, speaking on Wednesday�s edition of �Kokrokoo�, described the setting up of the fund as a "noble" one but bemoaned how government was controlling it. �How do you explain the inclusion of Information Service Department (ISD) and Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications as beneficiaries of a media fund? ISD is part of the government machinery; it comes under the Ministry of Information�you have misapplied and misdirected the concept in the first place. How do you rationalize or justify the whole thing� �it even means you don�t understand the concept. This is a very simple thing but it has been complicated. It is sad that an otherwise noble project (media fund) could not be executed. Why did government do this to itself?�the whole idea has been bastardized," He pontificated.