General News of Wednesday, 16 April 2003

Source: The Heritage

Rawlings must pay us ? Journalists demand

Journalists working with The Democrat newspaper, the mouthpiece of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are angry with the party?s founder for reneging on his alleged promise to pay their accumulated 11 months salary. The reporters who are all facing financial hardships as a result of their financiers? inability to publish the paper for over a year now are also bemoaning what they claim is ex-President Rawlings? ''hide-and-seek'' game with them.

"The Heritage" newspaper says following appeals to the office of the former President to assist in financing the newspaper, he promised to dole out cash to revamp it and pay the accumulated salaries of the workers. However, several months have passed and they are yet to hear from their boss.

The distressed and obviously hungry reporters, minus the editor, Razak Al-Alawa who has since announced his retirement, are now hovering from one media house to the other, seeking employment as freelancers. The Heritage says its undercover monitoring over the past months has established that they have been holding marathon meetings to decide their fate.

One of such meetings, which could be the last, was held at the premises of Ghana Club 100 in Accra, where the journalists drafted a letter to the former President to remind him of his earlier promises to pay their accumulated unpaid salaries and also finance the re-start of the paper.