TV license fee must be revised -GBC Boss

By: Romeo Adzah Dowokpor

The Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) , Major  Albert Don-Chebe (Rtd), has called for the immediate  upward revision of the television  license fee,  to enable the state broadcaster  to  internally generate enough revenue to run its operations.

The GBC boss lamented that over the past 21 years since the Television License Law imposed a tax on television viewers to pay 30 pesewas per a set of television for a year, the amount has since not seen any review in spite of the increase in inflation and other key economic indicators that have added to increase their (GBC) cost of administration and management.

Major Don-Chebe said this yesterday in an interview with an Accra-based radio station, Radio Gold, when responding to questions on how much the GBC has spent in its live coverage of the electoral petition brought before the Supreme Court, which ended last Thursday.

He revealed that his outfit spent GH₵3.5 million as total cost for the live transmission of the court proceedings amongst which included other accompanying administrative expenses. A development, he said, they had not expected since it was not covered in the 2013 annual budget.

He added that if the television licensing fee is reviewed upward “GBC can be taken off government’s subvention”   and would not have to rely on taxpayers’ monies from the state to keep funding their operations

The GBC boss, however, admitted that since 2006 the state broadcaster  has not “consciously” taken steps to go out and collect the fees because the cost incurred in its collection far outweighs the total cost of unpaid fees retrieved  from users of television sets across the country.

The former military officer added that the South African Broadcasting Corporation( SABC), Namibia Broadcasting Corporation(NBC) among other state broadcasters across the world are largely dependent on television license   fees for the funding of their activities

“The right thing to do is to revise it (Television Licensing Law)”, he emphasised.