‘We suspect foul play’ – MFWA on NCA’s refusal to provide information on licensed radio stations.

General news for Thursday, September 24, 2020

Source: Class FM

2020-09-24

The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has indicated that there are inconsistencies with the National Communication Authority (NCA) database on licensed radio stations in Ghana.

Addressing the media on the matter in Accra on Wednesday, September 24, 2020, Mr. Braimah suspects that certain information was deliberately omitted from the data provided to them by the NCA.

This, he said, is due to discrepancies that the MFWA identified.

“We made a call to a senior NCA official, the Director of Corporate and Consumer Affairs, and we had a very simple question. The question was, we noticed that in your 2020 database, which is a list of all licensed FM stations as of June 2020, there are radio stations that have their first authorization date since 2002 and the last renewal date of clearance is white.

“We also see that some of the stations, perhaps the first authorization, 2002 and the last authorization date is indicated as 2020, which means that the document has been updated as recently as 2020,” he said.

He highlighted some of the questions addressed to the NCA.

“So if we find that some of the stations have blank spaces where they are supposed to indicate the last authorization renewal date, how should we interpret it? Should we understand that those stations have not been renewed? And if they have not renewed and we have presented them as authorized FM stations, why haven’t they closed as the others have? ” I ask.

Mr. Braimah therefore hinted that in an attempt to obtain clarification on the questions raised, the MFWA formally wrote to the NCA, adding that: “To our surprise, the following week, the NCA decided to change the way who presented the data and what they did was eliminate the two dates that will generate questions about any discrimination or discrepancies in the way they present the data.

“I think if you compare this to the table above that we showed you, you will realize that the two columns have been removed and of course, without those two dates, no one can raise any questions as to why some stations have no indications while others, “he said.

The MFWA wrote to the NCA requesting information under section 12 (1) (f) of the 1992 Ghana Constitution and section 18 of the Right to Information Act 2019 (Act 989).

The letter, signed by Mr. Braimah and dated Wednesday July 22, 2020, requested “the complete list of all FM stations authorized as of the second quarter of 2020, indicating the dates of the first authorization, the dates of the last authorization renewals, locations and status (on-air or off-air) “.

The MFWA also requested “the complete list of all authorized television stations as of the second quarter of 2020, indicating the dates of the first authorization, dates of the last authorization renewals, locations and operational status.”

In addition, the MFWA demanded “an explanation of the recent replacement of its published report of the second quarter of 2020 entitled:” List of authorized VHF-FM radio stations in Ghana in the second quarter of 2020 “, which contained columns with the date of the first authorization and the date for the last authorization renewal, with one excluding the dates of the first authorization and the dates of the first authorization renewals. “

The letter also requested “the complete list (company name, radio station name, location, and frequency number) of all FM radio stations that were closed after the 2017 FM spectrum audit and online with the 2018 decision of the Communication Court ”.

In response to the letter from the MFWA, NCA demanded a sum of GHS2000 to access the information requested by the Foundation.

In a letter sent to the MFWA dated August 20, 2020, the NCA explained that the payment meets a requirement of Section 82 (1) (b) of the Electronic Communication Act of 2008, Act 775 to facilitate generation of the search report.