President John Dramani Mahama has urged journalists to exercise restraint in their scrutiny of government, cautioning against media practices he believes could shift attention from national development priorities to controversies that may not warrant public alarm.
He maintains that while the media must hold public officials accountable, journalists should distinguish between legitimate investigative reporting and what he considers an unnecessarily confrontational approach to government business.
Addressing the 30th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Media Awards in Accra on Saturday, November 7, the President expressed concern about what he described as excessive media zeal, particularly situations in which journalists publicly challenge ministers to answer questions over alleged inconsistencies.
He argued that such practices risk creating unnecessary tension between the media and government and diverting attention from issues that directly affect the lives of Ghanaians.
President Mahama cited instances where journalists invite or challenge ministers to appear on their programmes to answer for discrepancies they have identified, describing the approach as going beyond the limits of responsible media scrutiny.
“We must also draw the line where journalism becomes adversarial. As a trained journalist myself, I believe that it pushes the limits of media zealotry when a journalist publicly challenges a minister to call into his show to expose him over a so-called discrepancy that the journalist has discovered,” he said.
Despite his concerns, the President reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to protecting the media’s constitutional responsibility to scrutinise government activities and demand accountability from public officials.
He said his government recognised the importance of an independent media in promoting transparency and ensuring that those entrusted with public office remained answerable to citizens.
“This government that I lead will uphold the media mandate to hold government to account. But it distracts attention from the people’s business when we split hairs in a deliberate search for scandals where none exist,” he stated.
His comments come against the backdrop of public scrutiny of the government’s expenditure of GH¢49.7 million on the evacuation of 1,964 Ghanaians from South Africa following renewed xenophobic attacks.
The exercise has attracted criticism from the Minority in Parliament, which has raised concerns about the expenditure and alleged discrepancies in payments made to the returnees.
The government had allocated GH¢5,000 as a reintegration grant and GH¢500 for transportation to each evacuee. However, the Minority has questioned aspects of the payment records and called for an independent audit to establish how the funds were disbursed.
The President maintained that his administration would respect the media’s watchdog role, even as he urged practitioners to exercise judgement in how they investigate and report on government activities.