Government to Support Black Star TV - Minister

The Minister for Communications, Benjamin Aggrey Ntim has said his ministry would do all it could to assist Black Star TV, operators of mobile Fontv, to expand their network across the country in its (country's) bid to be part of the digital world.

The Minister said the introduction of the digital mobile device in Ghana by a team of young, dynamic and enterprising Afro Asians, was a clear achievement of the policy of government to support the private sector which is as an engine of growth, towards economic development. He made this known yesterday when he paid a working visit to the offices of the company at Nima, Accra, to ascertain how the information telecommunication system operates.

Aggrey Ntim said he was impressed with the kind of facilities displayed at the studios of the company when he was taken round to inspect the facilities. According to him, there had been a Memorandum of Understanding between members of the International Telecommunications Union to facilitate the achievement of their goal within the Millennium Development Agenda by 2012 - three years ahead of the 2015 deadline.

This, he said, would help push other sectors of the economy to achieve the set goals by the stipulated period.

Welcoming the Minister, Ibrahim Agyei, Corporate Affairs Manager of Black Star TV told him that plans were far advanced to expand their operations from Greater Accra, Tema and Kumasi to Takoradi, Cape Coast, Sunyani and other regions by 2009.

He also said the network challenges they encountered which led to brokerages in interconnectivity in the network transmission of Ghana Television in certain parts of Accra had been totally resolved.

Agyei commended the management of the National Communications Authority, the Ministry of Communications, Ghana Telecom and TV3 for their cooperation in addressing the difficulties and making the dream come true."I assure you that there is no network interference between our network and any network in the country. The fault was immediately rectified by our reliable African engineers brought from Germany", he said.

The introduction of the digital Fontv is expected to promote distance learning on education and facilitate quick information dissemination in the country.