Paul Adom Otchere attacks Manasseh's works

Host of Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana show, Mr Paul Adom-Otchere has taken a swipe at Manasseh Azure Awuni in relation to his publications on the Jospong Group, owned by Mr Joseph Siaw Agyepong.

According to Mr Adom Otchere, Mr Azure was not getting the facts right and was not doing the right thing by setting up the business man [Jospong] for attacks with his media trial.

Mr Azure in a Facebook post on Saturday questioned Paul Adom Otchere’s affiliation with the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and expressed concern why Mr Adom Otchere was sharing a statement by the GJA on corruption which was deemed was issued in reference to Azure’s work.

Read also: GJA cautions media on reportage on businesses but MFWA disagrees

Speaking on The Good Evening Ghana Show on Tuesday night, Mr Adom Otchere questioned the quality of reportage from Awuni in relation to the Jospong recent stories and cited many instances in which some media houses had set themselves up for legal suits with some of their reports.

He therefore advised Azure to revise his notes and also take a cue from Plato and Aristotle to avoid exposing his ‘cerebral weakness’ in his reportage.

Mr Adom Otchere in what he described as an "Editorial in defence of the GJA Press Statement on corruption", also disagreed with the posture of civil society groups on corruption that the timing of the GJA statement was “curious.”

Related: Anti-corruption civil society disagrees with GJA

He went ahead to state that the Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Mr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, was an asset to Ghana rather than a liability.

Mr Adom Otchere said he decided to associate himself with Mr Agyepong, owner of more than 40 companies including waste management firm Zoomlion, because, in “my small reading of economics, it is not politicians who build a country, it is entrepreneurs who build a country and when you have entrepreneurs, the politicians are supposed to support them.

Watch a video of the Good Evening Ghana programme below

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"From the time of Rockefeller in the 19th century, the American establishment has supported Rockefeller as a businessman, as an entrepreneur. I’m not saying when they do wrong, don’t say it, you can say it, but the reason why I am close to him – and it took me about four years to find him. Sometimes you call him and he won’t pick, he is still like that, six weeks you won’t find him, but when you find him, he’s able to tell you so many things that shock you: his ideas and you’ll see that his entrepreneurship is a gift – so as far as I am concerned, this man, Joseph Siaw Agyepong, he is not a liability to Ghana, he is an asset," Mr Adom Otchere said.

Read also: GJA under Affail Monney is a victim of “corporate capture” – Audrey Gadzekpo

“He [Siaw Agyepong] may have his wrongs but he is an asset to this country and everyone will recognise that a man who can take your brand to Liberia – look this is a guy that the World Bank said he had done something in Liberia and they had put him on suspension, he worked so hard with the World Bank that the World Bank came out and said that he is now the template for good corporate governance and award of contracts. Such a person, Siaw Agyepong is an asset to this country, he is not a liability. …We are prepared to support local businesses; that is the only way our country can be built,” Mr Adom Otchere added.

Mr Adom Otchere extolled the entrepreneurial acumen of Mr Agyepong while responding to a comment posted on Facebook about him by investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni in connection with a statement issued by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) which cautioned the media to avoid trying local business people in the media.