Citi News<\/strong>, he said it would be unreasonable to expect the courts start prosecuting people immediately.<\/p>\n[contextly_sidebar id=”sfX1gMdZ4IfyMvltGECe7myZcOELfNwr”]He said the Corporation’s focus is to educate Ghanaians to voluntarily pay the TV license fees.<\/p>\n
Dr. Annor-Ntow also noted that people ultimately required time to renew and pay their license, and that the State’s objective is \u201cnot to punish people needlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n
“We are not prosecuting anybody [today, Thursday]. The first option is to allow people to go and pay voluntarily. To the extent that it is a law, its enforcement will include that people will default and in the event of deliberate defaults\u2026 the possibility exists that you will be prosecuted but that is not our preference.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his view, adopting a punitive posture would not be a sustainable way of handling the TV license issue.<\/p>\n
“If a person is supposed to paying a TV license for the whole year, why do you arrest such a person on January 4 because a court has been established? It simply doesn\u2019t wash… You can even pay GHc 3 for 12 months. So if I am able to pay GHc 3 and you come and I show you the GHc 3 payment, you can’t effect an\u00a0arrest because I have paid for the month.”<\/p>\n
“If you want people to pay voluntarily, you want to advise them and convince them and bring them along\u2026 that is the route we want to adopt. To the extent that it is a law, we want to see it through to the end and to remind the general public that the possibility of prosecution exists” Dr. Anoff-Ntow said.<\/p>\n
Background<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Chief Justice set up the special TV license courts to deal with people who refuse to pay the mandatory TV license fees in line with the TV licensing Act 1966 (NLCD 89).<\/p>\n
The law notes that, \u201cany person who contravenes any provision of this law or regulation shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year.\u201d<\/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
GBC officially reintroduced the collection of the TV Licence fees in 2015 after years of putting it on hold due to non-payments.<\/p>\n
Domestic TV users are to pay between GHc36 and GHc60 for one or more TV sets in a household, while TV set repairers and sales outlets are to pay an annual sum of between GHc60 to GHc240.<\/p>\n
GBC had in the last two years since the re-introduction, appealed to Ghanaians to voluntarily make their payments.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Caleb Kudah & Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the eleven courts set up to deal with TV license defaulters begin work today [Thursday], the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation [GBC],\u00a0Dr. Akuffo Annor-Ntow, has explained that\u00a0prosecution of defaulters is not the corporation’s\u00a0priority in the interim. Speaking to Citi News, he said it would be unreasonable to expect the courts start prosecuting people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":388448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,11],"tags":[3894,3,15851],"yoast_head":"\n
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