The Daily Graphic in its top story quotes President Jerry Rawlings, breaking his silence on the AGC crisis, as saying that Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) Limited faces tough and challenging times, which it must be helped to get over.

The Graphic says that the President stressed that until September, this year, when the reprieve granted the AGC expires, and there is the need to put in place the necessary guidelines to enable the company?s management to operate to boost the fortunes of AGC.

In an exclusive interview with the state-owned Graphic, the President expressed serious misgivings about the manner in which a section of the media have misrepresented the problem of the AGC.

?Instead of the true picture of a company whose extreme indebtedness and serious dilution of the value of its shares have been the result of mismanagement, they sought to make it appear as if AGC?s problems were simply the results of a so-called personality conflict?, he is quoted as saying.

The Graphic says the President, however, said he is grateful that the situation, which put AGC on the brink of total collapse, has been averted. GRi../