By Love Wilhelmina Abanonave
A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) communications team, Theresa Kokui Ashie, has thrown her weight behind President John Dramani Mahama’s decision to introduce a public service broadcast levy, replacing the existing TV licence fee collected by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC).
Ashie believes this move will help GBC operate on its core mandate of information dissemination and keep it afloat.
“The public media levy will help to run the state media to enable them to operate on their core mandate,” she said.
According to Ashie, GBC has been striving to serve the nation, and it is essential to support the state media. The public media levy is expected to provide a more sustainable funding model for GBC, enabling it to fulfil its public service obligations.
Speaking on the GTV breakfast show today, she acknowledged that GBC has served the state well; hence, whatever must be done to keep it relevant must be done quickly.
This follows President Mahama’s visit to GBC yesterday, where he stated that the “TV licence law will be amended to become a public service broadcast levy,” after GBC’s Director-General, Professor Amin Alhassan, called on him to help settle its legacy debt of GH¢13.6 million following an earlier payment of GH¢5 million.
President Mahama assured that he will continue to engage with the National Media Commission on public media reforms.
