Adopt National Broadcasting Policy - Prof. Quarmyne

Professor Alex T Quarmyne, a communications and media expert, on Saturday called for a quick action to adopt a National Broadcasting policy to effectively monitor and enforce regulations in the industry.

He said there was much indiscipline on the Ghanaian communication highway 10 years after the adoption of a national constitution and nearly eight years of deregulation of broadcasting.

"The lack of a broadcasting policy is even more disturbing when we consider that communication highways are pathways to our minds", Prof. Quarmyne said at the outdooring of the studio complex and offices of TV Africa, performed by President John Agyekum Kufuor in Accra.

He said there were over 60 radio stations nationwide and six television stations, but Ghana still did not have a national broadcasting policy.

"When we speak of a broadcasting policy, we are not talking so much of a list of do's and dont's, but a vision of our society to which we all subscribe, a consensus, on the values that need to be articulated and promoted, and agreement on the basic ingredients of broadcasting for these to be realised," Prof Quarmyne said.

He reminded broadcasters that the airwaves belonged to the citizens of the country and broadcast frequencies were given out in trust to be used in the interest of society's cultural, social and economic benefit.

Prof Quarmyne said twenty years after a number of African countries, including Ghana, resolved to produce more of the television programmes they consumed, and launched various projects to enhance programme production capacities, the only change was that with the deregulation and more television stations, a lot more foreign films were being imported.

He said at the time of the launching of Ghana Television 38 years ago, President Kwame Nkrumah called for television to be used 'for education in the broadest sense of the word.'

He however wondered if the "unending parade of culturally irrelevant foreign language programmes dubbed into English" was reaching that objective.

Mr Kwaw Ansah, Founder and Executive Producer of TV Africa, said the station complex had the objective of using the state-of-the-art equipment and in-house programmes to enhance the soul and image of the African, both on the continent and in the Diaspora.

He said there would be more sacrifices in the days and called for support to build democracy, good governance and socio-economic development of the African continent.