The National Communications Authority (NCA) will soon punish over 100 radio stations for breaching various frequency regulations.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful.
She was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of a 9-member governing council at the NCA.
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The affected radio stations would suffer penalties ranging from suspensions to revocations of their frequencies depending on the gravity of the offence.
“Sanctions will be applied to those who flouted the license condition, they are over a hundred and sanctions ranging from suspension to revocation of the authorization and some would have fines imposed upon them. They range from either expiry of the authorization, incomplete application for extension or renewal, nonpayment of fees, transfer of licenses to other agencies without prior approval of the NCA and a range of other issues.”
She said this will serve as a deterrent to other radio stations and also restore some sanity on the airwaves.
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“We need to have some sanity in this space and so those are the measures we are putting in place to ensure that everybody who signed up to operate a radio station and this country will abide by their own license conditions that they’ve signed up to.”
When asked whether the affected stations could make up for such offences, she said a 30-day period is given to the affected stations after which the sanctions will take effect.
“They have been notified previously of the infraction that they are committing, they are not taking advantage of the notice period to make good and I believe that the law indicates that once the authority takes a decision, they give them 30 days’ notice of the intention to sanction them and once the notice goes the time starts running and within the 30 days’ notice period, they don’t have the opportunity to rectify whatever that has gone amiss.”
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She said that the NCA took the decision after conducting an audit into the authorization of radio stations in Ghana.
The board is chaired by Kwaku Sakyi Addo. The other 8 members are Paul Adom-Otchere, Joe Anokye, Kwabena Adu-Boahene, Bernard Aidoo-Forson, Philip Asare Kwame Ayesu, David Gyewu, and Susan-Barbara Adjorkor Boye Kumapley.