The Accra Mayor has apologised profusely to The Multimedia Group team who were assaulted Wednesday on a sanitation campaign.

 

Speaking on Joy Fm’s Super Morning Show Thursday, Mohammed Adjei Sowah described the incident as “unfortunate.”  

Attempts to cover-up a scene of food meant for sale stored at the same place as dustbin and public latrine, led to a scuffle, resulting in the heckling of a Photojournalist, David Andoh.

Mr. Andoh, who works with Joy News was part of the  Joy Clean Ghana Campaign team, made up of journalists, security officers, Public Health authorities and sanitation officers. 

They were at Mantse Agbona, a suburb of Accra to ensure that public health and safety were not being compromised in that community.

The  Joy Clean Ghana Campaign is an initiative of JoyNews, a brand under The Multimedia Group. 

It is a campaign to rally citizens to their civic responsibilities to keeping a clean community. 

As part of the campaign, members of the team have been placed at hospitals, schools, churches and public places in a move to re-awaken a dying sense of communal duty.

The exercise which has been incident-free since its inception, was met with stiff opposition Wednesda, at Mantse Agbona.

An Assemblyman identified as James Addo (aka Zola) mobilised the community against the team.

Describing his ordeal on the SMS, David Andoh said he was slapped. 

According to him “the Assemblyman came with his men and they were struggling to take the camera from me. So there was a struggle and somebody slapped me from behind.”

 He added that “When they realized that they could not take the camera from me, they pushed me to the ground and crushed the camera on the ground.”

The Accra Mayor apologised to him in person and to The Multimedia Group when they both shared the same panel on the SMS Thursday.

Adjei Sowah said he takes full responsibility for what the Assemblyman did.

“Unfortunately an incident occurred that was triggered by one of our own. So for collective responsibility, I will want to apologise on behalf of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to The Multimedia crew.

“From what I heard it was the Assembly member’s action that triggered the altercation and led to the slap,” a very remorseful Adjei Sowah said.

The Accra Mayor said what happened took place on his blindside.

According to him,  he was visiting some schools at the time of the incident.

“Then we had a call that there was an incident at Jamestown. At the time I rushed to the scene, they had called off the programme and were at the police station,” he narrated.

But as a sign of his commitment to ensuring that the right things are done, he followed up to the police station.

 “I don’t think that this is acceptable in this era of democracy where there is freedom of the press. I don’t think that is something we should countenance at all,” he averred. 

Adjie Sowah has promised maximum security to ensure that the rest of the exercise becomes successful.