According to them, the move will also compel the GBC, which has been in existence since January 1, 1953, to be competitive in the media industry.

[contextly_sidebar id=”MyS9OajjLGrpMz9dcDHOY8OqYvdccfa5″]Speaking to Citi News, the President of Imani Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, said GBC “should be made to be competitive because the media industry is quite profuse with a lot of media houses and there are a lot of radio stations and TV stations, if they are not going to compete, then they can’t survive.”

He also noted the need for the total restructuring of the GBC.

“The government must find avenues of making sure that GBC is diversified in such a way that there is significant uptake by the private sector. It also means there will be some injection of capital and there will be the restructuring of the entire GBC.”

In his view, a total revamp of GBC would not be a challenge, saying that “ it should have been privatized long ago.”

GBC can’t be profit-oriented

But the Ministry of Information has rejected such suggestions, which seem to pop up every time the state broadcaster is embroiled in some controversy.

Last week, the GBC’s Garden City Radio in the Ashanti Region was taken off air after the Electricity Company of Ghana disconnected the facility from the national grid over a debt of about GHc 1.75 million.

The Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid, expressed fears that the privatization of the facility would shift the focus of GBC to solely a profit-making entity.

“Some form of public service broadcasting is important. We cannot commercialize everything… If you gave me the GBC today as a private person to run, immediately, I would shut down a number of transmission stations across the country because those areas would not bring me profit as a business fellow.”

He argued that persons in unprofitable areas were also entitled to information so “it is difficult to commercialise an entity like GBC completely.”

When he was a minister-nominee for Information, Mustapha Hamid said he was going to champion moves to make GBC effective and viable to the point where it can generate its own funds.

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By: Philip Nii Lartey & Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post IMANI backs call for GBC privatization appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to the Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko, the government is willing to engage workers of ECG and their workers Union, the Public Utilities Workers Union (PUWU) to iron out their issues.

[contextly_sidebar id=”sBg9ozS0h54v3l2Kbo6MTPhm0OsQhb9C”]He however chided PUWU for bypassing the government and resorting to the media to voice their concerns.

“If there is an explanation you don’t understand, you come back to the table. You don’t go to the press. If you are sitting in a classroom and the teacher is teaching something you don’t understand, you ask the teacher for further and better particulars.”

PUWU’s latest demand from the government is proof that ECG workers will be retained by the concessionaires who will take over in September 2018.

This followed a sit-down strike by ECG staff, who are requesting severance package for workers who could be laid off after the company is privatized.

This was the latest agitation as a result of fears workers will lose their jobs following the Power Compact signed with the United States of America’s Compact II programme.

Speaking to the media, Boakye Agyarko said the government would deal with retention issues of the workers, but insists the approach of PUWU to get the issues resolved so far is wrong.

“Whatever entitlements and benefits they have accrued as workers under ECG shall not be tampered with, because they have moved to a new company. That was the guarantee we sought to give them. Nothing more, nothing less,” he stated.

The Employment Ministry’s role in all this will be to handle the worker dispute issues as the Energy Ministry’s purview is energy, Mr. Agyarko noted.

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Boakye Agyarko chides PUWU for bypassing gov’t appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.