Attaching workshop as a condition for granting frequency authorisation is quite strange – Sulemana Braimah

• 133 radio stations have had their licenses renewed by the National Communications Authority

•As part of the conditions, applicants are obliged to attend a sensitization workshop on the terms and conditions of FM radio broadcasting

•This conditions Sulemana believes is quite strange

Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), has said it is quite strange

Read full article.for the National Communications Authority (NCA) to attach a workshop as one of the conditions for granting frequency authorization to radio stations.

Speaking on Asaase Radio’s Big Bulletin, Braimah said there is a need for the NCA to be transparent with the whole process to prevent discrimination.

“It is important that we operate in an environment of transparency. Nobody wants people to breach the law with impunity, if people flout the law, the sanctions must apply,” he said.

“We need to be transparent with the process. We need to be nondiscriminatory in the processes… This whole new phenomenon of attaching a workshop as a condition for granting a frequency authorization is quite strange…” he added

He added the NCA strategy in handling these radio stations may leave room for a different group to come up with different law for regulation frequencies, this he believes is not needed as far as media management and media regulation is a concern.

“I think that we are getting into a terrain that going forward a different group come and they introduce their own laws for regulating the frequencies and I don’t think that is what is needed in a democratic environment as far as media management and media regulation is a concern,” Sulemana Braimah.

The governing board of the National Communications Authority (NCA), the spectrum regulatory agency under the chairmanship of Mr Isaac Emmil Osei-Bonsu, has approved new radio licence applications for Radio Gold, Radio XYZ and over 131 others.

A statement released by the NCA said a decision has been taken by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation to have the licences for the closed radio stations renewed.

The statement added that the applicants who have their licenses renewed will be obliged to attend a sensitization workshop on the terms and conditions of FM radio broadcasting authorisations in Ghana.

The workshop will give the applicants insight into the legal, regulatory and technical requirements for the establishment of radio stations in the country.