Executive Director of the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA), Sule Brimah, has labeled Ghana’s Parliament as ‘biggest institutional failure’ in the country.
His statement follows comments made by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu while making a contribution on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, argued that some misleading and inaccurate reports by the media has fueled perceptions that Ghana has become a very corrupt country.
“The media has a role to play as watchdogs but they must report accurately.
They must crosscheck their facts because they have contributed to the increased perception of the existence or nonexistence of corruption…They have a role to expose it [corruption] and they should do so courageously but they must crosscheck their facts because they contribute directly or indirectly to the formation of facets about it,” he stated.
But, speaking on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, Sule Brimah disagreed with the MP’s submission.
He argued that across the globe, the media is not perfect, therefore, media practitioners in Ghana cannot be blamed for the growing perception about corruption in the country.
“We all know about the many proven scandals, not allegations but proven scandals and I don’t think that he [Haruna Iddrisu] is saying that it is the media that created these scandals, SADA, GYEEDA, SUBAH or Woyome?” he said.
Mr. Brimah noted that such statements from MPs about the nation’s media is worrying, adding that “in our Fourth Republican Democracy, if you ask me I will say the biggest institutional failure has been our Parliament.”
He pointed out that although Parliament has been mandated by the 1992 constitution to be the watchdog over the executive arm of government, it has failed woefully in executing its duties.
He therefore advised the MPs to desist from blaming the media for government’s failure to tackle issues of corruption.
According to him, the MWFA has since May, 2014 been monitoring media ethical violations and “I will say that among the various categories, inaccuracy happens to be not the highest in terms of violation. When it comes to indecency, even the language that is recorded as being indecent majority of it comes from the politicians some of them who are in Parliament.”
