GBC to be made a public broadcaster

3/08/09

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
THE Cabinet last Tuesday decided to review the legislation establishing the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC NLCD 226:1968 ) to make it a public broadcaster.
At the sixth anniversary celebration of TV Africa, a private television station in Accra last Friday, the Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said the review of the legislation would model the GBC along the lines of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The review of the legislation is expected to put to rest the raging debate about the status of the GBC.
He noted that the GBC “is suffering from identity crisis” as to whether to operate as a public broadcaster or a commercial broadcaster.
Mr Iddrisu told the Daily Graphic later that the review of the legislation would give the GBC the authority to serve the public well and support government’s efforts at building the country.
He said the change of status of the GBC would make the competition in the broadcasting industry keener.
“The GBC will take the pride of place in Ghana’s media landscape,” he stressed.
The minister, therefore, urged other media houses, including TV Africa, to accept the challenge and respond to the competition in the industry.
He again indicated that the government was committed to the passage of the Broadcasting Act.
Mr Iddrisu said the government wanted every district capital to have at least one public or private radio station to promote the dissemination of information across the country.
Equally, he said, television was important to serve as an effective tool in the dissemination of information within communities, saying that “It has the tendency of transforming social norms”.
Mr Iddrisu said some television stations created awareness about government policies and prepared the people to take advantage of such policies. He, however, said other television programmes “debase our cultural values, and promote child pornography, the use of violent weapons, and explicit sexual programming in the form of Telenovela”.
He, therefore, charged the management of TV Africa to support public education on societal ills, such as crime, fraud, HIV/AIDS, rural-urban migration, teenage pregnancy and street hawking.
Mr Iddrisu commended the station for extending its transmission to about 40 per cent of the viewing population in the country.
He reiterated the government’s commitment to respect, promote and guarantee the independence of the media, media pluralism and freedom of expression.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of TV Africa, Mr Kwaw Ansah, said the station would not use it medium to play politics with issues affecting the people, saying that “We cannot play politics with them.”
Rather, he said, the station would use its medium “to get the people out of the woods”.
The Managing Director of TV Africa, Mr Berifi Apenteng, said the station had come a long way in providing authentic and reliable information about Africa in an African context.
He said through its programmes - news, current affairs and entertainment - TV Africa had been projecting the values of Africa usually ignored by the Western media.