Policy Think Tank, Imani Africa, has backed calls for the privatization of the state broadcaster, Ghana Broadcasting Cooperation (GBC), to ensure its viability.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”MyS9OajjLGrpMz9dcDHOY8OqYvdccfa5″]Speaking to Citi News<\/strong>, 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.”<\/p>\n He also noted the need for the total restructuring of the GBC.<\/p>\n “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.\u201d<\/p>\n In his view, a total revamp of GBC would not be a challenge, saying that \u201c it should have been privatized long ago.”<\/p>\n GBC can’t be profit-oriented<\/strong><\/p>\n But the Ministry of Information has rejected such suggestions, which seem to pop up every time the state broadcaster is\u00a0embroiled in some controversy.<\/p>\n Last week, the GBC\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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.\u201d<\/p>\n He argued that persons in unprofitable areas were also entitled to information so “it is difficult to commercialise an entity like GBC completely.\u201d<\/p>\n