Acting Director General of the National Communications Authority, Joe Anokye, has revealed that the regulatory body lacks systems that will enable it to block broadcasts by media houses who flout regulations.
“NCA doesn’t have the technology to take any radio station off-air. NCA doesn’t have the technology to interfere [with the signal of] any radio station. NCA doesn’t have the technology to jam any radio station,” he said on Thursday, August 17, after appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
One of the challenges of the NCA is the renewal of licenses by defaulting media houses and a member of the committee sort to find out if there was a way to block the defaulters from broadcasting.
However, Mr. Anokye said that is not possible with the current technology available so what the NCA does is to deploy a “task force that will come in and confiscated your company”.
He said the NCA is deploying an application that will give them visibility of the companies in compliance and those defaulting as processes for acquiring of licenses have always been manual prior to this time.
He pointed out that Ghana currently has 506 authorized radio stations with 382 operational.
He indicated that the law does not specify a limit to the number of stations that should exist so far as there is availability of spectrum or frequency which has a limit.
Source: GhanaWeb
