Dr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, the Minority Leader of Parliament, has expressed concern over the decline in media freedom under the current government as highlighted by the recent Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.
While Ghana ranked second in Africa and 26th in the world on the Press Freedom Index in 2016, the country ranked ninth in Africa and 62nd in the world in 2023.
“As we approach the 2024 general election, the safety of journalists remains a major concern,” he stated.
Delivering his closing remarks during the climax of the Parliamentary debate on the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), Dr Forson said: “Right Honourable Speaker, media freedoms have equally not been spared in the last seven years”.
“The media has come under the worst crackdown in the Fourth Republic, as attacks on journalists and raids on media houses continue.”
Touching on corruption, Dr Forson said the corruption scorecard of the Government was not encouraging and that, as the Catholic Bishops Conference put it, “there is massive uncontrolled corruption in Ghana”.
He alleged that rather than fighting corruption head-on the Government had rather “made the fight against corruption a high-risk activity for anti-corruption crusaders.”
“This, Mr Speaker, is the true state of our nation!”
GNA
ABD
12 March 2024
