Professor Amin Alhassan
THE DIRECTOR General of Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Professor Amin Alhassan, has stated that the fairness doctrine which forces the state broadcaster to offer equal time (free airtime) to all political parties was religiously adhered to in the 2020 gencral election.
According to him, there was no pressure from any quarters to influence election coverage of the GBC in the last elections and that accounts for why he does not take comments of biased coverage of GBC scriously.
The EU’s Election Observation Mission (EOM) had indicated in its
final report on Ghana’s 2020 election GTV favoured the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in its coverage ahead of the polls.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) also accused the state broadcaster of bias in the coverage of the last clections.
But speaking at the second ecition of State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA)’s media engagement series in Accra on Thursday, Prof. Alhassan insisted the accusation was unfounded, intimating, “When the NPP was in opposition, they accused GBC of bias, and when the NDC went into opposition, they accused GBC of bias.”
“But for me, somebody coming from academia, my interest was not in the claims of these two parties. My interest was to actually look at what is going on and I have explained to you,” he indicated.
He continued, “We have put in place a robust mechanism to advise us and tie us during elections, and it workcd in the last elections. Hlow does it work?”
“We have categorically stated the freebies — free airtime for all political parties and I can assure you they were equal. I supervised it and I tell you they were equal. Take me anywhere and I will prove that they were equal,” the GBC Director General insisted.
NPP Payment
“Then we said we had to make money. So if you have money, you can buy airtime. For example, the NPP went to launch its manifesto in Cape Coast. For the live coverage, we earned GH¢50,000 from the NPP. That is good money,” he said.
Prof. Alhassan asserted that “so if another party is launching its manifesto and you are not paying me, I will not come. I did not indicate that as part of the free airtime.”
“We determine the free airtime. Oh! You all have a turn on Moomen tonight and if it is your turn and you don’t come, please I have no problem. It is your problem. We have a breakfast show and we tell you each party will have a time on the breakfast show, come, it is up to you to come.
“We in GBC stand by the position that we gave equal airtime to all political parties. We also make business with airtime and it was airtime that money can buy,” he stressed.
“I remember saying this among my colleague academics and they damned me for saying that, and I told them you can sit at the university and say that, but when you are given the burden of running a corporation like GBC you will think again,” he added.
Showing Evidence
Prof. Alhassan said that he would defend the position that GBC gave equal free airtime to all political parties, and was prepared to show doubters the evidence “how we allocated the time.”
He, however, pointed out that “we are also a commercial broadcaster and in that area, it is not about equity or equality; it’s about money. Pay and we deliver; it’s cash and carry.”
SIGA Engagement
The SIGA’s media engagement series are intended to offer platforms to state institutions to present their turnaround stories to the public.
The Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG), which was one of the participating entities, also shared its success story during which the MD, Danicl Addo, talked about how CBG is helping the small and the mediu m-scale enterprises (SMEs) to deal with unemployment in the country.
Director Gencral of SIGA, Stephen Asamoah Boateng, was impressed by the performances of the two state entities and commended GBC and CBG for their achievements.
“For the first time, GBC has opened up. It was shrouded in some secrecy and today you have given us reasons for that — it was set up fora war effort and they went through African liberation.
“It tells you that there is a history that you cannot just write it off. It also calls for a whole mind-set change and it’s interesting,” he stated.
On CBG, Mr. Asamoah Boateng, popularly known as Asabee, described the presentation as brilliant, intimating that the beauty of the presentation lied on its focus on how the bank was helping to transform the SMEs to become large-scale businesses.
“We are talking about – ment and that is our enemploy Ghana now. COVID-19 hag hichlighted it and Made it & nounced. We are no = More projobs W talking about
“Because if you don’t have a job, COVID or no COVID you have to eat. COVID or no COVID you have to pay your rent otherwise you will be (pushed) out, “he argued.
The SIGA boss said the best way to create employment is through the SMEs and not big corporations, noting that it does not take much to employ someone in a small-scale business.
BY Emest Kofi Adu