By Tgnews Reporter
The Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Owena Press Limited, publishers of The Hope Newspapers, Mr Kayode Fasua, characterized a recent allegation that he was protecting individuals who falsified their ages to remain employed by the company as a careless falsehood devised by detractors envious of his modest accomplishments.
He also stated that the allegation that two Hilux vans had disappeared from the newspaper house’s fleet constituted a criminal aspect of falsehoods, as it was defamatory.
Fasua, who assumed leadership of the state-owned media outlet in October last year, said in a statement issued in Akure on Sunday that he was committed to fulfilling the mandate assigned by the Governor to revamp the newspaper house and apply his extensive experience to its operations.
In the first instance, he said he could not have protected those who falsified their ages or certificates, because he had willingly established panels to investigate such individuals and was not coerced into doing so. He established an age verification panel that convened for two days last May in response to whistleblowing by some staff members.
The panel, composed of four external members and three technical assistants from within the organization, met for two days to screen all 95 staff members and submitted its report more than two months later. Management reviewed the report, which was highly informative, and resolved to conduct further investigations, tracing correlations between school attendance and declared ages after discovering certain later court affidavits to be suspect, he disclosed.
Fasua added that management was still reviewing the documents of affected staff when the state’s anti-graft commission invited him to provide clarifications based on a petition the commission had received.
The commission did not disclose the author of the petition, but he provided all requested information on the matter. The anonymous petitioner also alleged that two Hilux vans were missing from the fleet, an accusation he promptly refuted with overwhelming evidence. Upon his arrival last October, he found a crashed and badly damaged Hilux van on the premises, but a few months later the General Administration arm of the Governor’s Office requested that grounded vehicles littering government establishments be transferred to the pool, and he released the damaged Hilux van to them, Fasua further clarified.
He noted that upon his arrival he had repaired the grounded staff bus, which is now operational, and that another damaged Toyota belonging to the company is currently undergoing repairs at a mechanical workshop in Akure. It is on record that between October last year and the present, the printing press was revived, enabling the organization to save a substantial sum previously spent on external printing.
When he arrived, the newspaper was issued in hard copy once weekly, but after some time he added a weekend hardcopy edition and, more recently, launched The Hope Magazine. He also introduced a daily digital front page to direct readers to the website, which, at the last count, attracted an average of 50,000 early-morning visitors, Fasua highlighted.
