By Gloria Agbemasi Davordzie
In 2017, news broke out of the closure of some radio or FM stations in the country. According to the National Communication Authority, the regulator mandated to regularize authorization and operation of radio stations in the country was due to expired authorization of these stations.
There was public outcry because of the enormous contributions these stations make to the socio-economic development of the country.
It is because of this, that the announcement by the NCA to re-authorize the stations that were closed down in 2017 and even to give license to new ones to operate has brought joy to some Ghanaians and Managers of these stations.
Gloria Agbemasi Davordzie looks at the journey so far in this interview with the Acting Head of Engineering at the National Communication Authority, Edmund Fianko who noted that a workshop was held last week with the Managers of these stations to discuss the modalities to operate going forward.
”In 2017 when we had the new audit of FM authorizations they had applied but their applications were incomplete. At the time they were fined, but then they appealed to the tribunal which quashed the fines but then also the basis for quashing the fines was that they reverted to the position of a new applicant which in effect meant they didn’t have any legitimate basis to be in operation so the NCA followed through to shut them down but then a number of them applied a number of them have so we announced that 133 were approved by the Board, but out of that number about 95 of them are on stations that are on air”.
”I believe that a number of them are going through those checks and obtaining their appropriate permit and when they are ready they’ll invite the NCA for inspection and after NCA inspects once the outcome is favourable, as in they have met all the requirements we will issue them with a test transmission authorization. The test transmission depends on them actually, if you are ready tomorrow, they will come and do the inspection”, he noted.
