A member of the government’s communication team, Mr Stan Dogbe, says the Daily Graphic must be held accountable for its story that singled out New Patriotic Party (NPP) Members of Parliament (MPs) as having been over paid their ex gratia. He said an audit report - based on which the paper wrote its story - had listed MPs from both sides of the House as having received undeserving payments and that it was the paper that “chose to focus on the five NPP MPs, rather than the 174 MPs" who had been overpaid. The Daily Graphic in its Thursday, May 13, 2010 edition reported that “FOUR ex-ministers in the Kufuor administration and the current Minority Leader in Parliament, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, have been ordered to refund a total of GH¢94,080 as over-payment made to them in their ex-gratia computation. “The directive, which follows the Auditor-General's Report on the Verification of Payments of emoluments for ex-ministers and Members of Parliament (MPs), drew an angry reaction from the Minority Leader when the Daily Graphic contacted him for a response.” The Minority Leader later described the publication as a childish propagandist tool used by the government to discredit him and other members of the minority in an effort to silence them. But speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Mr Stan Dogbe, said if there was any mischief in the publication, it should be blamed on the state-owned newspaper and not the government. The NPP’s Communication Director, Kwaku Kwarteng, who was also a panelist, said he was happy the issue had been clarified and that it was not only NPP MPs who had been overpaid but that some NDC MPs including the current Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, Alban Bagbin, and many others were also covered. He appealed to the Daily Graphic to investigate the issue and apply the appropriate sanctions to the reporter who did the story in order to preserve the paper’s integfrity. Play the attached audio and listen to Stan Dogbe and Kwaku Kwarteng speaking on Newsfile. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyuonline.com/Ghana