‘National Communications Authority must be transparent’
Discussants at a round-table discussion organised by the Graphic Communications Group Limited on media ethics and transparency in frequency allocation have called for the review of the National Communication Authority (NCA) Act to make its activities more transparent.
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The discussants observed that the activities of the authority were shrouded in too much secrecy and lacked clear guidelines and criteria under which frequencies were allocated.
They stressed the need for the authority to make its activities more transparent and open for public scrutiny and should be able to make public the identity of the people who had been allocated frequencies.
This, they contended, would enable the public to be able to question the eligibility of these owners.
Communiqué
These were contained in a communiqué issued at the end of a one-day round-table discussion held in Kumasi last Monday.
The participants, who were made up of media practitioners, lawyers, traditional rulers and academics, further called for the involvement of the National Media Commission (NMC) in the allocation of frequencies as “it is the agency mandated to oversee media activity including freedom of the media.”
Errant stations
According to them, it would be easier for the commission to bring errant broadcasting media houses to book, since “it will be part of the allocating and monitoring body” and thus called for more collaboration between the two bodies.
There was also the call on the NCA to make public the number of frequencies an individual or a business entity could own.
This, they said, was to ensure that there was an equitable distribution of frequencies among the three categories of broadcasting media namely: community radio, commercial radio and public broadcasters and avoid the situation where one group of people would monopolise the media space.
Media ethics
On the issue of media ethics, the participants recommended that media houses incorporate the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) code of ethics into the company’s contract of employment such that journalists would be compelled to uphold them.
They further called for the setting of a minimum qualification for journalists in order to ensure that those who claim to practise the profession would have the basic qualification.
Such a move, they noted, would ensure that there was some level of professionalism on the media landscape to reduce the incidence of having untrained and unqualified personnel parading as journalists.
Again, they called for the amalgamation of the code of ethics of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) and the Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) for members of the two organisations.
They further called for continuous professional training for both media practitioners and media owners for them to be abreast of the development in the industry.
The one-day round-table dialogue, which was a collaboration between STAR Ghana and GCGL, brought together eminent resource persons including a Lecturer in Communications Studies at the University of Ghana, Professor Kwame Karikari, former Executive Secretary of NMC and current Director of Newspapers at GCGL, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, and a former headmaster of TI Ahmadiyya Secondary School, Mr I. K. Gyasi. It was chaired by the Akyempimhene, Oheneba Aduse Poku.