The Ashanti regional Chairman for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, has taken on Aljazeera TV network over their false reportage about laundering of gold and money using mafia tactics in Ghana.
The NPP Chairman popularly known as Chairman Wontumi claims Aljazeera is gaining notoriety for churning out fake news without crosschecking their facts.
Chairman Wontumi therefore asked the TV station to learn some basic ethics of the journalism from Wontumi Media Empire and salvage the reputation crisis they are facing.
“We live in a global village so if you start churning out fake news, people would easily detect it and it will wash away the little credibility left to protect”, Chairman Wontumi said.
Just recently, the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo wrote to Al Jazeera over the undercover investigative report titled Gold Mafia, demanding a retraction and apology within seven days of receiving the letter.
In the letter written and signed by the President’s Secretary, Nana Bediatuo Asante, he is demanding that Al Jazeera retracts immediately and apologises for “airing an inaccurate and unfair documentary that contained spurious and unsubstantiated allegations against the President and the Government of Ghana.”
The letter states among other things, that the documentary in question made baseless claims that the President acted as a lawyer for one Mr. Alistair Mathias and implied that the President personally benefitted unlawfully from an alleged $100 million state Infrastructure contract purportedly awarded to Mr. Mathias.
In his letter dated April 11, 2023, responding to Al Jazeera’s letter of April 2, 2023, which was received on April 6, 2023, containing these vague and defamatory allegations, the Legal Counsel to the President, Mr. Kow Abaka Essuman, acting on the instructions of the President, Informed Al Jazeera that the President had not been in private practice since the year 2000 and that the President had no recollection of acting as a lawyer, either personally or through his law firm, Messrs. Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co, for a Mr. Alistair Mathias or his company, Guldrest Resources.
