GIBA in scaremongering mode - Kweku Baako

Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Kweku Baako, has slammed the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) for the manner the group went about expressing its reservations on the deal between the government of Ghana and Chinese Communications giant, StarTimes.

GIBA is resisting government’s move to commit the country’s Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) infrastructure into the hands of StarTimes, in the migration from analogue to digital television.

Incensed by the government’s attempts to yield its DTT to StarTimes through the Ministry of Communications, GIBA said “If StarTimes is allowed to control both Ghana’s only digital television infrastructure and the satellite space in the name of digital migration, Ghana would have virtually submitted its broadcast space to Chinese control and content.”

“It is disturbing to have the only Free-to-Air digital broadcasting platform, which is the medium for the dissemination of information to the public and operations of mass media in the digital domain, to be controlled by an individual entity whose current business in the country is Pay TV broadcasting and is already distributing licensed controlled conditional access decoders and digital television sets across the country in aid of its commercial business", the Association further stated.

Addressing the issue on Peace FM‘s Kokrokoo, Kweku Baako described GIBA’s position on the deal as “scaremongering or nationalistic emotionalism“.

According to him, the Association is making wrong conclusions about the agreement between the Ministry of Communications and StarTimes.

“I wasn’t impressed at all by their input. I thought it was driven more by suspicions, speculations…some wrong conclusions”, he said.

Mr. Baako believed government’s engagement with the Chinese company will foster good international relations, and doesn’t think “they (Chinese) pose such a threat that perhaps before we start dealing with them, we should consider ourselves losers…We need to also cultivate relationships with them. It gives us peace to negotiate better with our classic or traditional trade partners. These are emergent powers".