Porn stations: Government throws in towel; says it is handicapped

Until next year, hopefully, when a broadcasting law is passed, government says it cannot compel television stations to stop showing pornographic materials.

For now, the government can at best appeal to the conscience of local television stations not to broadcast explicit sexual content, Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid has said. Some TV stations have been cited for showing porn movies.

At least the National Media Commission has been petitioned to stop them but it is also legally powerless.

But the Information Minister told TV3’s Hot Issue on Saturday that the government is handicapped in controlling media content, but said it is on government’s calendar to consider a broadcasting law next year, if parliament is able to pass the Right to Information Bill this year.

“It is in our calendar to send the broadcasting law to parliament next year for passage… “So hopefully when we get to the broadcasting law and we succeed in getting it passed, we will have proper regulation for what it is that people can broadcast and what it is that people cannot broadcast.

“But as I said, until that time comes, we are sort of handicapped a bit,” he opened up. Offensive So far as Mustapha Hamid is concerned, showing such content on free-to-air stations is “not right” and “offensive” to the “moral sense we have carved for ourselves” as a nation.

This is supposed to be private adult material to be accessed in private and not meant for public consumption, he argued. Legislative Instrument 224 Under Ghana’s constitution, government has no business regulating media content but the National Media Commission (NMC).

The NMC has guidelines reminding media outlets that showing pornographic content is offensive. “But guidelines are not law,” the minister expressed government’s frustration.

A legislative instrument (LI 224) which would have empowered the NMC to censor such content was shot down by some media owners who went as far as the Supreme Court to scuttle the law.

“It does not lie under our remit to directly deal with this matter, but can talk to the stakeholders GIBA, NMC etc to appeal to these stations to refrain from showing such content,” he averred.