The Information Minister-designate has expressed disappointment with the nature of politics in the country.
Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said the polluted political landscape makes it possible for actors to attack one another with unsavory words.
Taking his turn before Parliament’s Appointments Committee Thursday, the long time Spokesperson of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said he regrets the poisoned political space in Ghana.
Reacting to an ethnocentric claim by the then Ghana’s Ambassador to Namibia, Harruna Attah against then candidate Akufo-Addo, the spokesperson described Mr Atta as an “unrepentant ethnic bigot” who cannot compare Nana Akufo-Addo to John Mahama the “ethnicist.”
Picture of some Information Service Department (ISD) vans.
“So he is an – I don’t know how to put it – avowed ethnicist if you want to put it that way. So even him [Mr Mahama], we haven’t tried to make him a central plank of our campaign and say,” he said.
Asked by Tamale Central Member of Parliament (MP) Alassan Suhuyini if he would want to apologise for his choice of words, Mr Abdul-Hamid said he rather regretted the atmosphere that compelled him to do that.
“I guess this was said in rebuttal [to claims made about Akufo-Addo],” he said, adding under the circumstances he thought it was appropriate to do that.
He pledged to sanitise the political space in the country to ensure that foul language is expunged from political discourse if approved.
“I will contribute my quota to ensure that we have a sane political environment,” he said.
Commenting on the challenges faced by the Information Services Department, the Minister-designate said he would “retool and re-engineer” the Department to work effectively.
“They have briefed me to the extent that they are heavily under-resourced, their vans have broken down and they don’t have computers to receive the news from the regions,” he narrated promising to revamp the institution.
