“It is a trivial story. There is nothing in this. It has become a story in the media because the reporter who heard the story from wherever or whoever leaked the story to him didn’t quite understand what was happening,” he remarked on The Big Issue.

[contextly_sidebar id=”yEwalOgsarrArd2PQguGpGHd4ZD3eQae”]On Wednesday, the banking sector woke up to reports that uniBank had taken over adb after four shareholders of the development bank; comprising Belstar Capital, Starmount Development company, EDC and SIC Financial Services Limited, pledged their shares, proceeds, entitlements and voting rights to uniBank.

The Chief Executive Officer of uniBank, Dr. Kwabena Duffour Jr. later told Citi News that uniBank had control over adb and that the move was in the best interest of the banking industry.

This was however followed by a u-turn from uniBank, after adb was suspended by the Ghana Stock Exchange and the Bank of Ghana announced that it had not approved a purported takeover.

adb also came out to deny media reports that uniBank had taken over its operations.

Mr. Casely Hayford was of the view that the genesis of this saga was engineered by the uniBank CEO and that he should accept blame for the matter being blown out of proportion.

“I blame Kwabena Duffuor Jr for putting such a story out because it is very amateurish and it is totally frivolous. I think he is in too much haste. This could have easily been a business discussion that has gone but he has hastily gone out into the public and gone and made a statement and this has now created all this confusion.”

He maintained that “from day one, this whole thing is a non-story and that is what we have to be very clear about.”

Storm in a teacup

Also on The Big Issue, another Financial Analyst Toma Imirhe said any potential takeover of adb by uniBank will not happen.

This is because there is no chance it can get a controlling interest, according to him.

“This thing is a storm in a teacup and the reason why is simple. This thing will not go any further. Unibank has no business buying any shares of adb if it cannot get a controlling interest of 51 percent, which it now knows it cannot get. So this issue is dead.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com

The post uniBank, adb saga: Misreported takeover ‘trivial’ – Casely Hayford appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking on The Big Issue, the social commentator said the claims that the NCA’s hefty sanctions were an attack on press freedom were “nonsense”

[contextly_sidebar id=”a4qKWdQdoQWNe6wU0cz7NraFbWOm2PL9″]In his comments on the matter, Mr. Casely Hayford noted that “the only people who are concerned and who are yelling for some kind of letting up of these fees are the social democrats.”

“A lot of the stations are open not for commercial reasons or not for business reasons, but for political reasons. So many of them are out there just because they wanted to join the political fray, and they get set up overnight and they get frequencies. So this [the sanctions] will sanitize the system.”

These sanctions have been criticized by the National Democratic Congress Minority in Parliament as an attempt by the NCA to monetize freedom of expression.

Some of the notable stations sanctioned by the NCA are Accra-based Montie FM and Radio Gold, known to be pro-NDC, of which the latter received the largest fine of GHc 61,330,000.

The Minority believes the huge fines imposed on the stations were unreasonable and all, but ensured the collapse of these media organisations

The concerns notwithstanding, Mr. Casely Hayford reminded that the NCA had a just cause to sanction these stations.

“Those who agree to belong to a certain organisation are given a certain obligation to do so, and are under obligation to also fulfill the terms and conditions under which they continue to be licensed.”

Ailing media space

Mr. Caseley Hayford added that, this development was a reflection of the media space generally “and the reflection of the industry is that, it is not a very lucrative industry because we know that they don’t pay staff very well.”

Beyond this, he noted that “a lot of the other radio stations are barely carrying on.”

“In fact, most of them are surviving because the owners continue to make payroll at the end of every month in order to keep the stations open,” Mr. Caseley Hayford stated.

Owners of the radio stations sanctioned for operating with expired licenses as well as other offenses, would have to cough up about GHc1.18 billion.

34 radio stations have already had their licenses revoked by the NCA for not renewing their licenses even after several notices.

NCA said it took the decision after conducting “spectrum audit” into the radio space.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post It’s nonsense to say NCA is attacking free press – Casely Hayford appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.