President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), Cecil Sunkwa-Mills, has revealed that members of the association along with others have not under any circumstance refused to pay for their use of the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform.
According to him, GIBA on the other hand has advocated for engagement on the pricing of the use of the platform for broadcasters. He revealed that the last engagement was actually done through the parliamentary select committee for communications this year.
With this, Mr Sunkwa-Mills stated that members had a list of concerns which included the pricing regime, among others, such as the absence of a policy for the DDT migration which could have also catered for the challenge encountered presently.
“… It’s important to note that GIBA or any station, be it GIBA or non-GIBA members have never disagreed on paying fees for coverage. That is absolutely an essential part of broadcasting, and we understand that it must be paid. So, there’s no objection.”
Cecil Sunkwa-Mills
Elaborating on the challenges with the fee put out by the minister for communication, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Mr Sunkwa-Mills noted that the association has expressed concern over the absence of a board and a management team. This, he explained, was actually part of what the DDT draft policy intended to address, coupled with some stations being turned off.
“After that meeting, there was supposed to be a follow-up meeting… Unfortunately, the next day, stations got invoiced on a fee which we referred to as arbitrary because there’s a process for setting these fees and GIBA believes that process has not been followed… So, we actually sought the opinion of the court, and we are actually in court for that interpretation…”
Cecil Sunkwa-Mills
Government’s pricing regime on DDT questioned
Furthermore, Mr Sunkwa-Mills stated that GIBA’s challenge with the fee has to do with the due process that was not followed, and the amount of money being charged. He explained that if government had gone through the process, then an appropriate fee would have been decided by the Act.
“Currently, we have the fees and rates Act and there’s a process that follows to allow that Act to come to play. So, that process would have determined the fee…”
Cecil Sunkwa-Mills
Regarding the appropriate amount GIBA members will be comfortable with, Mr Sunkwa-Mills expressed disappointment in the fact that GIBA was not invited to the meeting which decided the payment, although his members were present and questioned the decision.
With this, he highligthed that government explained that the fees was originally $15,000 but was discounted apparently to $10,000, which came up on the invoices.
“… They asked for a breakdown which the ministry had said they would share but they never did. So, we do not even know how they went about the fees, but it’s important to note that broadcasters may have others, and there are other modes of delivering broadcasting in the country and we have an idea of such commercial rates. So, a discussion would have solved the problem of numbers.”
Cecil Sunkwa-Mills
Meanwhile, the GIBA President expressed his resolve to follow through with the court proceedings to contest the pricing of coverage by media houses. He stated that GIBA is seeking from the court an interpretation of the mandate of the communications minister to fix such fees and to further terminate the services of some stations under the regime of fees.
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