President John Mahama has been given a 2016 deadline to pass a bill seen by media experts and industry players as a panacea to falling ethical standards in Ghana’s largely unregulated media.
The gentle remainder to the President was contained in a communiqué issued after a 3-day National Conference on Broadcasting Pluralism held in Accra last month.
Participants mulled over Ghana media development 20 years after the first private radio station, Radio EYE broke state monopoly over the media in 1994.
Despite a marked improvement in media freedom, participants expressed worry over absence of transparency in frequency allocation by the National Communications Authority, the institutional weakness of the National Media Commission in punishing erring media houses and journalists and growing tendency for pornography and profane language especially in the local language media.
Looking into the next 20 years, the participants and resource persons want government to prepare the media for the challenges ahead by passing the Broadcasting Bill and Right to Information Bill.
Director of the School of Communications Studies University of Ghana, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo noted during the conference.
“We need a comprehensive law that can address the complex question of broadcasting regulations in today’s environment, where with the advance of technology, information and communications are converging. For example how to deal with the novel challenges of regulating internet broadcasting and the social media, while enabling the freedoms that these media provide humanity”,
The participants were also disturbed by some aspects of the bill and called for amendments.
“The Bill in its present form seeks to give to the Executive, power and control over broadcasting in the event of a State of Emergency but such provisions could be abused and needs to be revisited and reviewed”, the communiqué said.
President Mahama who attended the conference’s opening ceremony has reiterated his commitment to seeing the bills passed.
