A private legal practitioner and law lecturer, Yaw Oppong, has suggested that the law governing the collection of TV License fees could be repealed if Ghanaians think it is too archaic and not in tune with modern times.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong> on Wednesday, lawyer Oppong said \u201cwhen a law made in 1966 is no more in tune with modern technology, let the appropriate authority repeal it.\u201d<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”vHaK93N39j1ebwQ2UZQhXxJaAdSs3gCm”]The TV licensing Act 1966 (NLCD 89) mandates the collection of license fees from persons or households that own television sets, but Director General of the GBC, Dr. Annor-Ntow, told Citi News<\/strong> in an interview that the license is to cover content and not ownership of TV sets.<\/p>\n Dr. Annor Ntow had also noted that persons who watch TV on their smartphones will also be charged because the law borders on content.<\/p>\n But lawyer Oppong is of the view that this will be illegal per the current standing of the law.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is his [Dr. Akuffo Annor-Ntow\u2019s] construction of the law. I\u2019m saying that my construction of the law is that, it doesn\u2019t include anything\u00a0 either than what we know to be TV. My understanding is that a TV is a TV. The description given through the law doesn\u2019t derogate from our understanding of what is television now.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawyer Oppong said \u201cwe should separate what we watch from the TV from a mobile phone because a mobile phone is a mobile phone.\u201d<\/p>\n CJ sets up special court to prosecute TV licence defaulters<\/strong><\/p>\n Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo has set up a\u00a0special TV Licence Court<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>to deal with people who refuse to pay the mandatory TV licence fees.<\/p>\n The courts, numbering 11, are located across all the ten regions of the country, and are to sit every Thursday with effect from 4th January 2018.<\/p>\n The courts will sit from 8:30am to 4:00pm on the said day.<\/p>\n Police to help enforce TV license payment \u2013 GBC<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0 GBC Director-General had earlier said the Police Service will help in the pursuit of persons who refuse to pay their TV licence fees.<\/p>\n Dr. Annof-Ntow said the police involvement is to help forestall further challenges with the collection of the fees.<\/p>\n \u201cWe made a formal appeal not only to the court, but also to the IGP because we anticipated that we were going to hit a snag and some people will deliberately refuse to pay. So from where we sit, I\u2019m delighted at the fact that the Chief Justice has granted our request. What it means therefore is that, this is an encouragement for everybody to go and pay the television licence.\u201d<\/p>\n Opposition to payments<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, some Ghanaians have kicked against the payments accusing GBC of not providing compelling content to motivate them to pay the fees.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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