– As MD Chases V8 To “Befit” His Status.
Ghana’s second-biggest state-owned newspaper, The New Ghanaian Times, has not been able to publish for two days in row because the media organization is stark broke, Whatsup News has gathered.
On news day, Saturday, Times which is the flagship paper of publishers, The New Times Corporation (NTC), could not make it to the newsstand together with The Spectator, another paper on the stable of the State publisher.
The same failure was repeated on Monday for Times.
Fingers of blame are pointing at the Managing Director of the NTC, Mr. Martin Adu Owusu. He is alleged to have been mismanaging the Corporation since he took over as MD in January.
For some staff, what is even annoying is that while mismanaging the corporation Mr. Owusu has also been thinking of his personal comforts rather than the corporate good.
Allegedly, when Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, recently paid a working visit to the NTC to assess their operations, the MD told the Minister that the NTC did not need any assistance per se as it is doing well financially, but rather demanded a V8 four-wheel drive to befit his status.
The Minister is said to have promised to consider the request but ultimately the government dismissed it.
WhatsUp News has been finding out that the failure to publish was because Times could not go to press for the two news cycles.
This is because the Graphic Communications Group, another state-owned media organisation with whom the New Times Corporation has been printing, refused to print for the Ghanaian Times because of the latter’s indebtedness – Times has been printing on credit from Graphic for a long time and the bills have been piling up, sources explain.
According to the insiders, matters came to a head when Graphic demanded that Times pay up as a precondition for any more printing jobs. A broke New Times Corporation could not pay up and therefore incurred Graphic’s refusal to print for it.
Meanwhile, Times’ inability to publish on the two occasions means advertisement commitments were not fulfilled and would throw it into a vicious cycle where it would not be able to collect advert revenues that could be used to offset some of the debt.
Sources say the paper’s advert clients are demanding their money back.