The Fourth Estate’s Journalists withdraw from GJA/KGL Media Awards

Journalists of The Fourth Estate who have been named as finalists for the GJA/KGL Media Awards of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) will not be accepting the award.

In the last couple of months, The Fourth Estate has been revealing the details of a questionable licence granted by the previous leadership of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) to KGL Technology Litd, which essentially handed over the most profitable business of the NLA to KGL.

The Fourth Estate’s publications have revealed how the said NLA-KGL deal is enriching KGL at the expense of the state. Among many other revelations, it has been proven that while KGL generated revenue of over GHC3 billion from operating the NLA’s lottery, it was required to pay only GHC156.7 million to the state. 

The publications have also revealed how NLA’s contributions to the Consolidated Fund of Ghana have reduced from GHC37 million in 2018 (the year before the KGL deal), to ZERO contribution for the last three consecutive years (2022, 2023 and 2024).

Indeed, at a recent appearance before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, the current Director-General of the NLA, Mohammed Adul-Salam, confirmed that the state could earn far more from such a deal.

Strangely, there have been a series of curious coincidences of events that suggest the GJA, as the umbrella body of journalists, may be allowing itself to be used to counter or undermine the public-interest revelations by The Fourth Estate on the state-fleecing NLA-KGL deal. 

For example, after The Fourth Estate’s main publication on the terrible deal on September 30, the GJA organised a KGL-sponsored event at Alisa Hotel on October 9, which was used by the Executive Chairman of KGL, Alex Appau Dadey, to attack The Fourth Estate and its work. The event was covered and broadcast live by a number of media organisations.

At the said KGL-sponsored GJA event, the KGL owner said, among other things, that: “Permit me to use this distinguished platform to comment on a recent publication by the Fourth Media Estate (sic) headlined NLA hands 3 billion of prime business in exchange for peanuts. At the KGL group, we are focused on our vision of creating wealth responsibly with utmost integrity and would usually not comment on irresponsible and sensational journalism, except for the fact that we remain, as corporate Ghana does, partners of the media in nation building.”

We were hoping that the leadership of the GJA would deem it fit to openly correct the unfortunate attack and characterisation of the work of The Fourth Estate by the Group Chairman of KGL. But that did not happen, affirming the conviction that the event was essentially a sponsored event for KGL to whitewash the terrible deal, and serve as a platform to vilify The Fourth Estate.

In yet another curious development, this year’s GJA awards has been christened; “GJA/KGL Media Awards,” ostensibly to reflect and demonstrate the extraordinary financial commitment of KGL to the GJA for this year’s award. Even though all GJA awards have always been rightly supported and sponsored by corporate organisations, we struggle to recall any time in the recent past when the GJA has had to co-share the title of the awards with a corporate sponsor.

Given our revelations of how state-fleecing the NLA-KGL deal has been and our public-interest commitment, it will be unconscionable on our part to accept a KGL-sponsored award. Indeed, accepting such an award will be to benefit from the proceeds of the same terrible NLA-KGL deal that we have been exposing. 

While we will cherish any public or institutional recognition for our work, we will not do so at the risk of compromising our conscience. Indeed, it will be unconscionable on our part to receive a GJA/KGL media award when just about a month ago, KGL sponsored a GJA event and used it as a platform to describe our work as “irresponsible and sensational.”

The Fourth Estate wishes all awardees at this year’s GJA/KGL Media Awards the very best.