The Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has rubbished claims by the Ningo Prampram Member of Parliament, Sam Gyata George that her outfit has signed a contract with star times to manage the digital space of the country.
Speaking on an Accra based radio station, Joy Fm, Mrs Ekuful said government has neither signed nor ceded its interests in the digital space management to the Chinese.
She maintained what Ghana had done was to sit down with the Chinese to talk about the frame work that will help it manage the digital space.
This emphatic answer, flies in the face of the NDC and Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) who had suggested in several media outlets that Ghana was been coerced by China to cede its digital space management to Star- times.
‘’We have not signed any contract with Star Times but what we have done is to open up discussions with the Chinese so they can help build a framework where we can maximize returns on our digital space’’, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful posited.
DOCUMENTS:
In an earlier release copied to the Ghanaian Observer Newspaper, Mrs Ekuful said all that the NDC MP and some persons in (GIBA) had done was to misrepresent the issues emanating from discussions it held with the Chinese.
She said two projects the Ministry is working on are the National Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) infrastructure and a 300 Communities Satellite TV project.
These two projects, the Minister noted are distinct projects which are not related.
According to the Minister, the DTT project is an infrastructure development project which is aimed at providing a digital transmission backbone to facilitate Ghana’s migration from analogue to digital transmissions.
The project, she stated is owned by the Government of Ghana and is to be operated by the state owned company established for the purpose.
Work has been completed on phase 1 of the project leading to the provision of 40 digital channels which is currently in use, Mrs Ekuful educated.
Phase 2 of the project, she disclosed requires an expansion of the network to up to 60 channels to bring the total number of channels to 100.
300 COMMUNITIES PROJECT:
The 300 community satellite Tv project will enable 300 settlements across the country have access to satellite television, the Minister noted.
She said it is an Africa-wide project which will provide the same service to 10,000 communities in 25 African countries.
The project is expected to benefit 6,000 households drawn from 300 communities nation-wide, the Minister noted.
Mrs Ekuful said the project is a giant step aimed at helping citizens of Ghana to access TV information on national and international events and programs that would educate, entertain and inform.
She said Star-times, a service provider has been working with the Ministry and various districts and regional representatives to identify the 300 settlements.
The official launch of the project, the Minister mentioned will be the 26th day of September at Akweibu near the Dansoman estates.
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