Halt TV license court now or jail all Ghanaians – AFAG

The Alliance for Accountable Governance(AFAG) is demanding for the suspension of the roll out of the TV license court which is set to begin today, January 4, 2018.

Government last week announced plans to implement the measure which is aimed at enforcing payment of TV license fee to boost the operations of the state broadcaster, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

The Chief Justice Gloria Akuffo has set up 11 special TV Licence Courts across the regions to try defaulters of the licence fees reintroduced in 2015. The courts, which will sit in the 10 regional capitals plus Tema on Thursday’s, will be presided over by 11 designated circuit court judges.

The establishment of the special courts by the chief justice followed a request made by the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Kwame Akuffo Anoff-Ntow on November 6, 2017. The Television Licensing Act – 1966 (NLCD 89) established the TV licence fees. In 1991, it was amended.

The licence fee has been categorised into three- first category is the domestic use, which is GH¢36 per TV and GH¢60 for two or more TV sets in the same house.

TV set repairers and outlets pay GH¢60, while TV dealers pay GH¢120.

Defaulter of TV license fees could therefore be prosecuted starting today, January 4, 2018.

But a leading member of AFAG, Davies Opoku called for more stakeholder consultation on the license fees before any disciplinary action could be taken by government.

“We’re calling for it to be halted, we think it’s unnecessary. Then the whole country will be jailed, GBC or the proponents of this very proposal should give us reasons, they should give us cause for which we should be paying monies to them.

It is not happening, today people go to GTV to pay for programmes to be aired even to educate the citizens, what are they doing with all those monies. The monies they generate, do they account to the general public? no we’re not seeing anything.

“So what we’re saying is that, as a matter of urgency this whole process should be halted, there’s the need for a public debate on this subject so that we will all as citizens decide that we’ll want to pay TV license fees, but allocations should be so and so, or we should use it for the development of out TV stations irrespective of whether is owned by the state or private owned.”