XYZ And Radio Gold Were Not Targeted For Closure- Ursula Owusu

The Minister-Designate for Communication and MP for Ablekuma West, Mrs. UrsUlar Owusu Ekuful has made it clear today that, radio XYZ and radio Gold were among the fifty-one (51) defaulted commercial radio stations but not a target for closure.

Mrs. Urslar made this revelation when she appeared before the appointment committee today Monday 15 February 2021 for vetting.

She explained to the committee that, an Audit was conducted in March 2017 to assess all FM radio broadcast authorization excluding public FM stations operated by the Ghana Broadcast Cooperation (GBC) to identify stations with expired authorizations and those that have not commenced operation within the stipulated period.

The former Communication minister further broke down the report as, One Hundred and Forty-Four (144 FM) which were either operating with an expired authorization or had failed to commence operation within the stipulated two-year period after the grant of the license.

She said, 51 companies had submitted incomplete documents for renewal after the expiration of their five-year mandate. Twenty-Six (26) companies applied for renewal even before the audit but no authorization was issued and they were requested to resubmit a complete application since what they submitted was incomplete whilst Eighteen had been issued provisional authorization before the Audit but hadn't paid the fees in full.

She said, following the recommendation of the Audit report and the decision of the Electronic Communication tribunal in the case of the Ghana Independent Broadcasting Association versus the NCA, the Authority shut down Fifty-One (51) commercial FM stations for failure to submit its complete set of renewal documents prior to the expiry of their authorization which includes both Radio XYZ AND RADIO GOLD.

The communication minister-designate, Mrs. Ekuful did indicate that radio XYZ and Radio Gold were not targeted as special stations to close them as been mentioned and that, Fifty-One (51) radio stations were shut down including Five community FM stations that failed to submit their complete set of documents were equally closed down during the exercise.

All these clarifications came up when the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzato Ablakwa who is also a member of the appointment committee asked, per the report of MEDIA FOUNDATION FOR WEST AFRICA did indicate in their last quarterly report on 2018 that, radio XYZ and Radio Gold were purposely targeted to be shut down.