The Morning After

Unlike every morning after, when any can strike five on chest or even breast [for lack of space] with a sense of achievement, relief or “ah! Well!…” whatever and that it is all over, the gathering crescendo of GBC-phobia against TV license- payment [TVLF] effective today, has put an un-easy damper on as fresh as daisy memories of the 80^th celebrations to make a post-script compelling.   I can re-wind the deserved congrats to the Corporation for the distance its come so far.

My hope and   those of others without patronizing, concur in optimism about a new and restored professional culture in GBC in spite of all the legitimate consumer disgust into a sectional “yentua”-[‘we won’t pay’] protest , whose strength of argument is altogether weak both legally and civic-morally. There are really no options because it is the law; but that is not where the emphasis is; and that exposes why the premise of the objections are overwhelmingly wrong to single out to target GBC, as if the Corporation owns the whole business. It would suit some and they could be consummately correct to say that GBC is incompetent and it is neither right nor fair to pay for propping this mediocrity which has helped to nurture the whole rumpus from cumulative years as a matter of fact.

For others it is that very distinction that is necessary to enable the following: the unhealthy distrust of GBC is not just of yesterday—politics is chiefly to blame outside of the inordinate ambitions which stalked; this nation failed to value the importance of the institution as representing it; that fed no maintenance and where there had been some implementation, there was least recognition—national policy-wise, that it is a never-ending task where another obstacle looms after one is overcome and the new looks insurmountable than the last; and that this hula is generally this nation’s job and specifically not per se GBC’s though the TVLF is going to work for the Corporation more than by the others. The shares, not pro rata in its essence, show statistically.

Beyond these, the unchallenged truths are that GBC is an unavoidable cost to the nation unless the country does not want it in which scenario can only be best decided by a referendum- costly; it alone is cast for both the social and public duty-responsibilities [indeed its very ethos], despite the increasingly growing unwieldy numbers in the private sector whose bottom line is “maximize the profit” without binding obligation to the State and Public, very true. C’est vrai—tres, tres.  Also, the Constitution perceives and makes adequate checks and balances which gives GBC the virtual inalienable burden for that mandatory civil side responsibility in akin stipulates of Presidential powers relative to the use of and recourse to GBC more than the rest up to times of emergencies. I recall those provisions instigated quite a dispassionate debate in the chamber of the crafting Assembly—the erudition and learning; it was “Tweaa……”

Some expressed anxieties about cash receipts, disbursements and accounting are not unfounded; but the insistent discontent suggests the country learns no lessons at all. One of two solutions may be touted as solution to stop the mischief mongering in that regard. [1] Formulate a Charter –BBC model for the GBC; and [2] re-jig the fees’ funding recipients- ratios, though GBC would lead. The [1] is not going to take a long haul but it would raise dicey-issues about the varied constitutional roles of respectively, the National Media Commission [NMC] and the National Communications Authority [NCA]including on the one hand, Ghana Independent Broadcast Association [GIBA] and the Legislature on the other.

All that have the residual resolution in the re-doing of the NMC into downsizing its membership [nine approximately] to give majority to the media which stamps their ownership to wean it away from State coffers and semi-enduring arrears of stipends and running costs; and ultimately the decision to confront is merging NMC with NCA. I know this re-stirs a certain hornet’s nest because I was pilloried for daring that skirt in 1997/8 by some who seemed to either lack vision or were angry because a certain source of “kakra a yebedzi ntsi” or “noko fio ne aba ayie hewon” must have been felt threatened. It happened in our country here, a very familiar cover with more than several similar blockades at other places.

Interestingly, the oddity [because it surprised many] but worth studying objection to GIBA being a beneficiary necessarily proposes GIBA to raise its subsistence dependence through hiked subscription levy for their members.   The salient outcomes tally with practice elsewhere in terms of membership of the NMC and NCA and would embolden the ownership of both Watchdogs by a thoroughly independent country-media in control. That ultimate, with or without it immediately, further invalidates the game of the protestors except otherwise for self-protection of occupational interest but it is and would be supportive of the expectancy that the TVLF shall drag in that situation of independence and accelerate a developing media. The remarkable story about this final upturn is the history.

The crafting Assembly for the 1979 Constitution held out a prospect for this very result in framework to lure off Accra businesses into the other Urbans and districts with handsome Tax breaks up to 17 percent below the norm parri passu. Its matrix would cede only two percent to a Media Development Fund. The end game was to make the press independent– in part building their own structures equipment et al and creating jobs. “COMPOL’98” resonates the same theme with a direct two to five percent ex-national Income Tax Chest directly for the same enterprise. The politics of “THEM” and “US” scuttled that after the “Ballot 2000”.

I find the shrill anti-TVLF a consequence of the periods, though it seems the dirges wear new clothes and Apostles just as with the NMC and GIBA non-sequitur disagreement about the proposed Cap on ownership in the electronic media. Initial complaints about media empires building by such a few have only just come home to roost. The upcoming Broadcasting Law limits ownership for THREE to one person. Apart from the equity sense in the broad meanings of the population at large, business monopoly Oligarchies , room for others [look at our lands and the rising public repugnance] as ought; and that a technically and professionally up to it electronic sector to match the global movement at news and information– delightful and delectable.

Our GBC has achieved that before. That is the paradox. It is not forlorn, given its head, freedom and empowerment supports from not just that fee. The biggest problem is the GBC has given the misimpression in the mono over-talking as if it is for only them, a joint GBC-NMC- advised presentation team notwithstanding. There is some apparent intransigence about advisories. That is the bald bane fuelling the public’s disquiet. But that needs be assuaged urgently.

The end of the celebrations means getting down to work. The speeches were fine and remember those do not reconstruct as GBC is wanted to regain national loyalty which has slipped or is nose diving or others would say ‘has left’ it. It remains a huge misstatement of an old sine qua non dictum that GBC is not or no longer the country’s one only [Avor Deka] Public Broadcaster. It is! It is! It is! The compare is that Kindergarten numerals play-song which ends throughout- from the first stanza to the Nth thus:”ONE IS ONE AND ONE ALONE AND EVER MORE SHALL BE SO”.

In our folklore, there is dialogue between Kweku Ananse [the Spider] and his eldest son, Kweku Tsin. It ensued after Ananse had flattened a chap he felt was intimidating his son. The boy called out:”Daddy, struck well and right on time; but I am troubled, looking at the aftermath, unable to see the way forward” You see when the NMC launched the re-activation of the TVLF, there was no member or anyone else who figured out the mixed reactions –some pleasant or sit on the fence and others outright “yentua”. So there was no anticipatory strategy to meet any; but it is as well tactically in benefit of hindsight because the best embracing and worst of ‘no deal’ have both come together rounded out—content and extent.

What is present in both sides is the abundance of goodwill. This is the most essential component in this first step to let re-build the country’s electronic media particularly. [It is mandatory on the NMC]. Of course at the forefront of that will for harnessing to massage the reconstruction in GBC for one and the padding for others is constant need to combine the goodwill with the realization that that (a) it is an inextricable part of developing a FREE SOCIETY; and (b) it being the responsibility of every succeeding generation so that the benefits will (i) not be lost and (ii) each would reap consonant benefits. I am convinced the process exists in which to do it.

© Prof.nana essilfie-conduah

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