Government to review regulations establishing state-owned media

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed the government’s commitment to help review the regulations that established state-owned media in the country.

In a meeting with the National Media Commission (NMC) at the Jubilee House on Wednesday evening, the President stressed the need to change the concept of the state-owned media to make them more independent.

He explained that the idea that a media was “owned by the state” was not proper in a multi-party democratic environment such as Ghana.

Rather, he said there should be a public broadcaster as well as print media that served the interest of the public, rather than a “state-owned media that served the interest of the government.”

According to the President, the concept of state-owned media creates the possibility for the media to be used as an instrument of party propaganda in a multi-party state and called for a new definition for ‘state-owned media.’

President Akufo-Addo pledged to support the NMC to review the regulations that established such media to make them more autonomous and free from government control.

He said under the current state, the political party that took over government automatically had ready-made media instruments, which was unfair.

The President used the example such as the British Broadcasting Corporation which was seen as a public broadcaster in Britain, and not necessarily a state-owned media to make his point.

The chairman of the NMC, Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, said the NMC was working with the Ministry of Information to help make the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation a public service broadcaster.

He said a committee had been established and made consultations in that regard but its work had been affected due to the lack of finance.

He expressed the NMC’s commitment to work to restructure the GBC to make it serve the role as a public broadcaster.