Acting Director of the Information Services Department, Francis Kwarteng Arthur, who has come under fire over the error-ridden Ghana’s Independence Day anniversary brochure, has been sacked.
A statement issued Thursday and signed by Communications Minister Dr. Omane Boamah said the Ministry has assumed responsibility for communications at the Presidency in what the government says, is a restructuring of its communications systems.
At the back of public criticism of the brochure that was fraught with errors, misrepresentation and inaccuracies, Mr Arthur on Monday issued a statement to apologise to the president and the people of Ghana on behalf of the ISD, which he claimed, authored the brochure. The brochure among other errors, addressed Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyata as the President of Ghana
“The Department, which authored the content of the brochure, accepts responsibility and wishes to unreservedly apologise for the development,” the statement said
But that did not go down well with the staff of the Department who discounted Mr Arthur’s claim, forcing him to retract and apologise to the staff at a durbar on Tuesday.
He, however, insisted that he was responsible for the content of the error-ridden independence anniversary brochure, which has since sparked controversy and grabbed international headlines.
“After meeting with my colleagues, and [after] deliberations, I have acknowledged that I should have issued it [the apology] in my capacity as the chair of the Communications subcommittee of the National Planning Committee. I’m assuming full responsibility. I have listened to their suggestions and I’m prepared to move along with my team collectively,” Mr Arthur told journalists after the meeting.
Again, at said durbar, Mr Arthur claimed that the Flagstaff House approved the error-filled Independence Day brochure for publication, stating that the final work did not come from the ISD but the Flagstaff House which designed and printed the brochure whose content he personally produced.
He also revealed that he deliberately forged the ISD letterhead that he used for the Monday’s misleading apology statement to the President and the people of Ghana
“Yesterday Monday, I did not have a copy of the ISD letter heads in my file… When push came to shove, I didn’t have access to [the official letter head] so on my laptop, I had the coat of arms there so I just lifted the coat of arms and with my computer skills that I have, I typed under it.”
“So what you see there is what I generated and this is to explain the reason why it is not on an official and a notable letterhead that all of you are familiar with,” he added.
By Stephen Kwabena Effah|tv3network.com|Ghana
Twitter @steviekgh
