Minister for Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has intimated that the National Communications Authority (NCA) should have been more proactive in ensuring that the number of unauthorized stations were clamped down earlier.
She said this in relation to the announcement made by the NCA some weeks ago to clamp down 49 television stations; for operating without authorization.
“The NCA should have been more proactive in their assessment;on who had the right to be utilizing our frequencies and who was acting irregularly or illegally on that. And that is just by assessing those who were on air;and whether or not they had abided by all their regulatory obligations.”
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful averred that it is not too late for the NCA to use its powers under its legislature and regulatory framework to ensure that all those issued with frequency authorization utilizes them in accordance to the regulations.
“I know that the media commission and other regulators are also looking at this space as well. We had a very useful stakeholder forum;at which we discussed a myriad of issues of which will affect that sector and;I am sure that going forward,; we will build up some synergies that we can ride to clean up these challenges.”
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
Work was in progress before Kasoa incident
Touching on the Kasoa incident which saw two teenagers killing a ten-year old boy due to a content they followed on television, she said the incidence was not a wakeup call to the ministry.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful posited that the various authorities in charge were already working on solving content issues and indicated that after the FM audit, they were going to look at TV stations as well. She also said there was work in progress in that regard and the NCA needed to acquire a broadcast monitoring tool to actually see the stations that were on air that is, terrestrial televisions and satellite televisions.
“Not all of them were broadcasting from Ghana, some of them are from other countries so, they needed to determine which of them are in that space. We are working with them to acquire that capability.
“It seems like a coincidence or an occurrence which focus people’s minds on the urgency with which we needed to address some of these emerging issues. We have been discussing the content on some of these stations for a while.”
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
She further said initially her outfit was pushing to get the issue solved but the feedback from the National Media Commission indicated that their “hands were tied” and that the law didn’t empower them to work in that space.
Let’s seize the opportunity to solve content issues
Moreover, she stated that content-wise, it wasn’t the communication ministry’s mandate to determine;what is put out indicated that her outfit “stays clear off that”. She said it is the Information Ministry and Media Commission’s area of work adding that they had some few challenges.
The Minister indicated that there was a bit of a gap between the NCA;and the communication and information ministries and said her outfit will take the blame for that. Also
“But that has been corrected and going forward that will not happen again. We need to seize this opportunity to clean up our broadcasting content issues.”
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
