The National Communication Authority (NCA) has criticized the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) for pretending it did not know about the Authority’s new reclassification policy.
The NCA’s Principal Manager in-charge of engineering, Edmund Yerenkyi Fianko on the Point Blank segment of Eyewitness News said: “GIBA is acting as if we have sprung a surprise on them; it is not a surprise.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”Seq8DFA6yzl18tsDWYywTikczdLjTUZS”]He claimed that the association failed to raise its present concerns during the consultative meeting and further accused some operators of failing to attend the meeting due to their disregard for its importance.
GIBA has said it will petition the President and the Communications Minister over the NCA’s reclassification policy which seeks to reduce the ….from 100 kilometer radius to 45 kilometre radius.
The association has further threatened to drag the Authority to the Supreme Court if it fails to review the policy because according to them, it will adversely affect their businesses.
However, Mr Fianko stated that the policy is not new since its implementation began in 2012.
“There is no new policy. We started something in 2012 and if you do something in 2012, it cannot be new in 2015.”
He admitted that the association made suggestions during the consultative meeting but he said: “if you make a suggestion and you don’t back it with any hard facts, we will be unable to use that to change a policy.”
According to Mr. Fianko, for existing operators, when their authorization is due to expire and they apply for renewal, the new policy will then be factored in.
This, he indicated is to help “give businesses ample time to plan and structure whatever they are doing to fit the policies that will come.”
He mentioned that the radio stations with 100 kilometre coverage are very few in Ghana and also, there are stations with certain coverage areas they are not even covering “but we are not saying that if a station has a valid authorization today, that station would have to reduce its coverage immediately.”
Mr. Fianko therefore advised GIBA to present their concerns to the Authority for consideration saying, “if they have concerns, nothing prevents them from making representations to the Authority concerning issues they have with a particular policy or regulatory action.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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