..Board Firmly Fixed In The Mess

….As Some Staff Join The ‘Pull Him Down’ Agenda

Desperate plot to push out current Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Ampem Darkko has been uncovered.

Investigations revealed that a group comprising GBC staff and some Board members has put in motion a plan for their Director General to go on “a long leave” just after he had returned from one last Monday.

Sources at the state broadcaster say last Monday when the GBC boss resumed work, a blank leave application form signed by the Board Chairman Mr. Ahetor and the Director of Administration Alhaji Chodi was sitting on his desk. According to information gleaned from the sources, Mr. Ampem Darko was to sign the leave application form by force, a situation many say is against the rules.

The usual thing however is for anybody wishing to go on leave to apply, whose application will in turn be vetted and approved by the Board with signature by the chairman.

That is routine in the case of the Director General.

However that corporate procedure is amiss in the current goings-on at GBC. Mr. George Sarpong, Executive Secretary of the National Media Commission (NMC), the overseeing body of the state broadcaster was stunned when contacted last Monday on the issue.

“If there is any problem, we (NMC) have to be informed. Things cannot just be done like that if it is true. But we will check the facts,” he said.

Mr. Sarpong promised that the issue would be looked into and the proper steps taken to rid the GBC of improper managerial policies.

According to a leave schedule sheet for GBC executive directors covering 2009, the Director General is due for leave four times.

Under the schedule, Mr. Ampem Darko is to go on leave in October, January, May and November.

He has just returned from the October leave and his next leave begins in January.

Other officers billed to go on leave this month have not been asked to do so. They include Deputy Director General, Director General in charge of television, Director of Technical Operations, Director of Business and Special Assistant (Finance, Audit and Regional Operations).

It is not clear why Mr. Ampem Darko is being asked to go on leave just after returning from one.

But his supporters believe this is one of the steps afloat to kick him out of the corridors of GBC.

When contacted via telephone, Mr. Ampem Darko simply said “no comment.” The Director General has been in the news for some time.

He verbally clashed with New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament K.T. Hammond after the latter had called for his dismissal on the floor of the house. This led him to Parliament’s Privileges Committee where he apologized for the unsavoury comments he made about K.T. Hammond.

The GBC boss bounced back in the news again after Ghana Television failed to telecast live as promised, President Mills’ address at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.

According to a statement issued after what some consider the station’s consistent black-out on President Mills, GTV could not get the feed from the broadcasting unit Globecast, which got the accreditation to syndicate the proceedings during the UN meeting.

The broadcasting agency subsequently apologized for the mix-up, saying GTV was given a wrong cable.

The station was later given a recorded version of President Mills’ address which was later played back.

Mr. Ampem Darko was appointed in July 2007 under the Kufuor regime. A restructuring exercise he is currently spearheading is said to be paying off heavily in the interest of the state broadcaster.

Before he took office, internally generated revenue stood at 2 billion old cedis a month, but that has increased significantly to an average of 8 billion old cedis a month.