Sanitation Minister justifies attacks on MG journalist

The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Joseph Kofi Adda, has seemingly justified death threats on Media General’s journalist Kwakye Afreh-Nuamah by accusing the journalist of unprofessionalism. Even though the minister emphasized that he does not support the threatening of journalists, he believes that the threat on Kwakye Afreh-Nuamah is not worthy of discussion as the integrity of the journalist is in question. “Let’s not look at the threat, let’s look at what he should be doing as a responsible professional journalist,” Mr Adda said. Following Kwakye Afreh-Nuamah’s constant criticisms and campaign on social media to get the ministry to solve the sanitation problems in the country, he was last month threatened by a strange caller, who introduced herself as Hajia Boya working at the NPP headquarters. “If you dare criticize Kofi Adda again, I will teach you a bitter lesson. I will make sure you are bedridden. I will make sure you are crippled for life. Are you the one who appointed Kofi Adda? So why are you calling on President Akufo-Addo to sack him. You think you can sit on Facebook and write any nonsense at all eh? I will teach you a bitter lesson if you don’t stop criticizing Kofi Adda. Do you think he is your class? Even Paul Afoko I dealt with him. You are like a small Lizard. I will deal with you squarely,” the caller is quoted as threatening. Reacting to the issue on 3FM’s Sunrise Tuesday, Kofi Adda says it is his suspicion that the journo has been bought to be used to antagonize him. “But Nuamah should also be above God in doing his professional work and I have no reason now to believe otherwise that perhaps he sitting there is being paid by someone to keep doing that against me.” The basis for his suspicion, he says, is “it’s common that some people are being paid on that”. The minister further accused the journalist of bias lamenting why he does not say anything positive about his ministry in his line of work even when he has been given all the information about the ministry. “For a long time, even after we presented all the information to him, I never heard him say once on air what we have presented, by way of the problems that we came to inherit, by way of the initiatives that we’re bringing into the system. He has never once said anything positive about what the ministry has done,” he lamented. Background The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resource has recently come under severe public criticisms for not doing enough to help the poor sanitation situation in the country. Mr Adda describes critics as “ill-informed”, maintaining that his ministry is doing a lot and cannot be ranked as the worst performing ministry as people think. He said his ministry has worked around the clock to come out with a comprehensive master plan that will cater for all the sanitation needs in the country. Source: 3news.com|Ghana Follow @3Newsgh]]>