Mr John Tia Akologu, Minister of Information on Friday directed public and civil servants to decouple politics from statutory duties. "The attitude of carrying political colours to work place is anachronistic," he said. Mr Akologu charged management and staff of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) to put aside their political affiliation in the performance of their statutory duties. "If you want to be a journalist, be a journalist; and if you want to be politician be a politician, you cannot play dual role especially working with the State media," Mr Akologu stated during a day's working visit to GBC in Accra. The four-hour working tour was to afford the Sector Minister an opportunity to acquaint himself with programmes and understand challenges of the 75-year-old State broadcaster; explore possibilities for collaboration to create favourable working conditions and environment to ensure GBC assumed its leadership role as a public broadcaster. He cautioned management of GBC for sliding backwards and allowing the private media to dictate pace of the industry, and challenged it to assume its leadership role as a public broadcaster. Mr Akologu noted: "It is unacceptable for the State broadcaster to descend into unprofessional practices in public broadcasting; projecting programmes and movies, which are offensive to our norms and moral values". The Minister of Information castigated some reporters and crew of the State media for attending programmes late; "it's an offence to see media personnel, television crew coming to programme and rudely interrupting the function to fix their cameras and microphones". In spite of some of the negative activities; Mr Akologu commended the management and staff for their bravery, determination and sacrifices to work with the limited resources and challenging conditions. Answering questions on State interference with editorial contents of the State media, the Minister of Information noted that the National Media Commission (NMC) was supposed to insulate the State media from governmental control but unfortunately it failed to address issues of funding. "The institution of the NMC falls flat on the face of the adage he who pays the piper calls the tune. Government cannot continue to pay state media and not play oversight responsibility over. "As a media personnel and former member of NMC, I encourage you to table a proposal before the Constitutional Review Committee," he stated. Mr Akologu noted that Government had instituted capacity building measures for journalists, public relations and media practitioners to enhance the industry. On the issue of sidelining State media journalists in favour of private media journalists on official trips outside the country, Mr Akologu said the issue would be addressed. Mr James Agyenim-Boateng, Deputy Minister of Information tasked GBC and other State media not to renege on the cardinal principle of speed in news delivery."you are doing very well in upholding the principle of objectivity and accuracy but lacks serious speed of delivery". "GBC can do better as the private radio stations always beat State media with speed, it is disheartening to wait and watch GBC air a programme three, four days after the function, which the private media had aired the same day," he added. Mr William Ampem-Darko, GBC Director General commended the Ministry for its tremendous support especially its digital transformation in Greater Accra, Eastern and part of Ashanti Region. However, he called for more support to complete transformation throughout the country for the State broadcaster to attain the 2015 switch-over to digital transmission target. Other issues raised include delay in release of government subvention, lack of vehicles for operations especially in the regions, distortion and delay in payment of salaries. Source: GNA