A member of Ghana’s parliament, Samuel George Nartey has accused government of desperate efforts to keep two opposition affiliated stations from using Ghana’s frequency modulation spectrum.
Government has faced nationwide condemnation of the decision to take the two stations off air and what has been described as similar “carefully targeted” actions against other radio stations across the nation.
The decision to take off air the other stations in other parts of the country has been seen as part of a desperate attempt to justify the closure of the two opposition affiliated stations, Radio Gold (90.5 FM) and Radio XYZ (93.1 FM).
Government has been accused of spreading falsehood about the reason for the closure of the two radio stations.
Government in an official statement cited the ruling of the Electronic Communication tribunal (ECT) as the basis for its actions.
According to the Information minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, a former broadcaster turned politician who has become a strong advocate of the decision, the tribunal in its ruling ordered that the stations be taken off air, their authorization revoked and made to apply for a new authorization.
Whiles there is no such order in the ruling of the ECT, the partial coverage and passive interest in the situation of the affected radio stations by colleague media houses has left the stations on the defensive.
The stations have also been left battling to fend off of other false and concocted reasons for current predicament, which are fast gaining grounds including the claims that they owe license renewal fees.
This claim though untrue are being spread like wildfire with the stations suspecting that the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has activated its grassroots propaganda machinery; same one it used to successfully justify and douse concerns over the unpopular ousting of the two topmost elected national executives of the then opposition party ahead of the 2016 elections.
Ghana’s MP for Ningo Prampram Samuel George Nartey says the affected radio stations should brace themselves for worse in their bid to draw attention to their plight and pressurize government to reverse the decision.
He pointed to the power outage that the National capital Accra experienced on Tuesday 19th May 2019 as evidence of how far the Nana Akufo-Addo led government will go to enforce a media blackout on the coverage of any event connected to the decision to take stations off air.
As at the time of the blackout, some leading media houses were providing coverage to a demonstration that was being held to press government to review its decision.
Samuel George Nartey believes the outage was carefully calculated to ensure that the Ghanaian populace does not get the opportunity to here the story of the affected radio stations.
The Radio stations have always maintained that the move by the regulator of the Electronic media space, National Communications Authority (NCA) is harsh, capricious and an affront to press freedom.
On May 9, 2019, some staff of the NCA accompanied by heavily armed security officers stormed the premises of two opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) affiliated radio stations to demand that they go off air.
A few hours after forcing the two stations off air, the NCA led by its Director General Joe Anokye with the full support of the broadcaster turned politician Information minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah then engaged in a post-facto rationalization of the excessive show of power.
At the time they claim that the closure was due to the failure of the two stations to renew their expired authorizations.
In the case of Radio Gold, it was claimed that the authorization of the radio station which started operation in 1996, expired in 1995, a year before they began broadcasting.
Ironically the stations were closed down at the time they were providing live coverage and updates of an ongoing press conference by the Council of Elders of the opposition NDC on an invitation extended to the National Chairman of the party by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service.
In the face of these questionable coincidences, the NCA and the Information ministry insisted that it was enforcing the ruling of the ECT and has demanded that the stations make applications for new authorizations.
The press conference that followed the decision to take these stations off air was however not the only action taken to rationalize the move.
Since these stations were taken off air, several other radio stations have fallen under the axe of the NCA, in an attempt to show that the two Accra based stations were not targeted.
Despite the NCA’s justifications, some niggling questions remain unanswered; key among them being whether the ECT actually ruled that the radio stations be taken off air.
It is worth noting that in the case of Radio Gold, the tribunal’s decision was made on grounds, dissimilar to that of the other radio stations.
This is because Radio Gold’s issue was originally before a High Court of Ghana and was referred to the ECT on the plea of the NCA.
Radio Gold had gone before the High Court to demand that a penalty of GHC61million imposed by the NCA for purportedly failing “produce documents” be struck out on the ground that the authority did not give the station a fair hearing before imposing the fines.
The fines were imposed after the expiration of a legally mandated 30 days to renew period given by the NCA.
After the expiration, the NCA fined the stations for failing to produce some documents it deemed crucial to the process.
In the case of Radio Gold, the fines were calculated from 1995.
When the matter went before the tribunal, the Justice Dr. Dateh Baah (rtd.) panel ruled in favour of Radio Gold and demanded that the NCA gives Radio Gold a hearing.
It is however baffling that instead of giving Radio Gold the fair hearing to which it was entitled, the NCA chose to order the station to go off air under what can best be described as “curious circumstances”.
It should also be noted that Radio Gold has since 2017 when the Nana Akufo-Addo led government came into power and conducted the spectrum audit, made several attempts to renew its authorizations.
On one occasion, the NCA officials took the documents presented by the station, confirmed they were complete, accepted renewal fee only to after a few hours return it on “orders from above”.
In the case of the other radio stations, it is curious to note that even though the tribunal quashed the fines against them, some proceeded to pay those fines.
The checks issued to pay those fines were returned when the NCA decide to make them scapegoats.
The radio stations and their backers have however sworn to fight the decision of the NCA against the odds and obstacles that are being placed in their way by a government to keep them off air and silence the alternative views even if that means bringing its full power to bear.
Story by: Sena Nombo/Radiogoldlive.com
