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DAILY HERITAGE FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 2018 11
Politics
“There are greater things to be achieved in
every new year, and each and everyone must
prepare themselves to be great, not by words of
the mouth, but by a lot of sacrifices.”
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Prez encounter with the
Media: MFWA’s perspectives
BY MFWA
ON JANUARY 17,
2018, the President
of Ghana, Nana
Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo,
hosted journalists
from various media organisations in
Ghana to respond to their questions
on the performance of his government
in the first year and the general
state of affairs in the country.
Commonly referred to as “Presidential
Media Encounter”, the event is
the second since the President assumed
office on January 7, 2017.
The first media encounter was held
in July 2017.
The Media Foundation for West
Africa (MFWA) sees the exercise as an
important initiative that helps to
deepen the culture of democratic governance
in Ghana. The event serves as
a platform that allows the President to
account to the people on his stewardship.
We therefore commend the President
and the government for
following the footsteps of predecessor
governments as far as the regular
media encounters are concerned.
In order to help guide post-event
reflections on the usefulness of the
event and to provide useful insights
for future events, the MFWA presents
its perspectives of today’s media encounter.
The analysis assesses the
overall arrangement and format of the
event, quality of the questions that
were asked, the quality of the president’s
responses to the questions and
makes some recommendations for future
encounters.
Thus, this document is presented
with the following sections: format of
the event; quality of questions asked;
critical missing pieces, the President’s
performance and recommendations.
Format of the event
The event was generally well organised.
The president was well composed,
articulate and created an
atmosphere of conviviality throughout
the event. The president’s introductory
address was, however, too long and
tended to focus nearly exclusively on
the achievements of the government
with almost no focus on failures,
missed targets and challenges. The
procedure on selecting those to ask
questions could have been better coordinated
right from the beginning.
For example, an expectation was
created that there would be an opportunity
for journalists from each of the
regions to ask a question but it did not
turn out so. However, the effort to ensure
gender balance in the filing of
questions is commendable.
Quality of
questions asked
A total of 20 journalists asked
questions on various issues and sectors.
These questions were analysed
and this report presents the MFWA’s
perspectives on some of the best and
worst questions. Analyses of the quality
of questions were based on basic
principles of good questioning such
as: relevance of the question; whether
a question was a leading question;
whether the question had good background
and contextualisation; the clarity
of the question and whether a
question made references to data, facts
and illustration. Using these principles,
some questions were found to be really
good while others were judged to
be poor.
The following three questions were
found to be the best of the day:
“I take it that given the size of the
economy you couldn’t have addressed
all issues in your opening statement
and so I take it that the issues you
raised are on your priority list. However,
there is one issue that I find not
addressed in your address, which I
think without it can bring every plan
of yours to naught. It’s the issue of security.
In 2014, a young man known as
Alema was alleged to have joined ISIS.
In fact, his family confirmed that
story. In 2016, security experts revealed
on GBC 24; in fact they
showed us evidence of how some
members of ISIS were getting in
touch with some young Ghanaians.
Just a couple of days ago, the Ghanaian
police arrested some persons with
seven grenades. You didn’t address
that. Mr President, how safe are
Ghanaians under your watch?” -
Abdul Hayi-Moomen – GBC The
question was relevant and purposeful.
The questioner provided useful background
and context. It wasn’t framed
in a close-ended way and asked with
clarity. “I would like to find out how
you could have come to the conclusion
that the Ministry of Trade has
been cleared of the extortion allegations
that were made - frivolous or
otherwise - when indeed the parliamentary
committee has just begun its
work. What is the basis of your conviction
that the Ministry has been
cleared of the allegations?” – Kwesi
Pratt – The Insight Newspaper This
was a very useful follow-up after the
president had sought to dismiss the
usefulness of the on-going bipartisan
parliamentary enquiry on the issue of
“cash for seats”. The question was
clear and precise.
“I remember the vice president
said and has said so many times that
we are building a modern formal
economy premised on National ID,
Digital Address and mobile payment
interoperability; and in February 2017
in your State of Nation address, you
said and I quote ‘the process for a
comprehensive National ID System
and the property titling system will be
completed this year. When we met
here in July 2017, you repeated the
National Identification scheme will be
working by the end of the year as
promised and the digital address system
will be functioning; end of quote.
So two weeks into January, what is the
state of the National ID and the mobile
payment interoperability system?”
- Bernard Avle, Citi FM
The questioner provided good
background and context including
quotes. It was a question that probed
the delivery of the government on key
promises and its failure to meet publicly
announced deadlines.
The following were
found to be the worst
questions asked:
“We are in the 25th year of the 4th
Republic and 2012/2013, you led the
NPP to the Supreme Court, the petition,
I will like to find out whether the
live coverage, the outcome and the immediate
consensus or acceptance of
the ruling is a major hallmark of the
25th anniversary of the 4th Republic”
- Gordon Asare Bediako, The New
Crusading Guide. By far, this was the
worst question of the day. It lacked
relevance and context. “My question
is, something unprecedented happened
in Ghana here, that is during
•President Nana Akufo-Addo
your first year, that is the coming in of
visitors mostly presidents. Classical example
was the Emir of Qatar, President
Macron and all those people
coming in. In your view Mr President,
what do you think accounted for their
interest in coming into Ghana, especially
in your first year” - Naana Ntiri,
Peace FM
While there may have been a number
of foreign dignitaries coming in at
the same time it cannot be described
as an unprecedented phenomenon. It
appears to be a question that sought to
provide an opportunity for the president
to tout the achievement of his
administration. “Mr president, there
is this school of thought that believe
that incumbency is advantaged, disadvantaged
sorry its disadvantaged and I
want to have your view on that” –
Prince Godfred Obeng, Ark FM
The question was not clear. It
lacked purpose and relevance as no
context was provided.
“Mr President, thank you for the
opportunity and I want to commend
the hard work that you have put in
galamsey fight because it has really
yielded results. Mr President, my question
and I want to refer to the question
on Ghana Beyond Aid. Because
we don't know or we don't have a vision
of where Ghana wants to be in
the long term, when policies are introduced
by political parties a lot of
questions are raised about them, all
the sectors have their own plans but
we don't have a vision as to where
they rise to. The US president has
made very derogatory comments
about us, people were up in arms but I
must say it’s rather a painful truth because
of the way we do our things. Mr
President the question I want to ask is
when are we having a national plan?” -
Annie Ampofo, Group Nduom
Media. The background to the question
lacked focus and what ultimately
was the question was factually incorrect
because Ghana has a development
plan as was alluded to by the president
in his response.
The President’s
Performance
Overall, the president was composed
and demonstrated knowledge
on many of the issues around which
questions were raised. In cases where
the president did not have an idea or
could not respond to a question, he
demonstrated honesty. For example,
he made it clear that the 2014 World
Cup Committee White Paper was not
on his radar. He also admitted the inability
of his administration to meet
the deadlines on the issuance of the
National ID and the rollout of the
mobile interoperability system. In
some instances, he relied on his sector
ministers to deal with specific questions
relating to specific sectors, which
we deem a good strategy.
The low points on the president’s
performance were on his responses to
the question on vigilantism. For example,
the president’s reference to how
overwhelmed the security agencies are
in dealing with the problem of vigilante
groups cannot be justified. Indeed,
the problem is one of lack of
political will and not limited capacity
on the part of the security agencies to
deal with the problem.
The worst moment in the president’s
responses was his attempt to
discount or dismiss the on-going bipartisan
investigations into what has
become known as the “cash for seat”
saga. Indeed, the president’s comment
devalues the on-going work of the bipartisan
committee. This is especially
so because the president in his introductory
remarks took pride in the fact
that under the first year of his administration,
a number of bi-partisan investigative
committees have been set
up to investigate allegations of wrongdoing.
Recommendations for
Future Encounters
Journalists should prepare adequately
and have questions that have
been well researched with proper
background and context. Journalists
should endeavour to ask follow-up
questions when earlier questions by
others have not been answered satisfactorily.
More time should be allocated
for questions in future
encounters.