President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has asked owners of radio stations that were closed down over various infractions, to apply to the National Communication Authority and go through the various procedures to resume operations.

Nana Akufo-Addo said this at the Jubilee House during a meeting with political party leaders on Friday, 3 April 2020.

The President's comment followed an appeal from the Chairman of the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo to him to grant amnesty to the closed-down radio stations, as he did for some 808 prisoners last month.

According to the NDC Chairman, at a time when public education is key to fighting the disease, it is imperative that more radio and television stations are allowed to educate their audiences.

“I want to end by making a very passionate appeal to His Excellency the President that the role of the media is very critical and in this country, we all know that we have, [whether you like it or not] political divides in this country. If you go to the US now, there are a lot of people who will tune in to CNN because you belong to a certain ideological persuasion and you have a lot of people who will tune in to Fox News because of their ideological persuasion. So, there are people who are glued to certain media houses and would want to take public education from them. It is on this score that I’m making a passionate appeal to His Excellency the President, and to commend you for the amnesty you granted to prisoners recently.

“Your Excellency, I’m asking for another amnesty from you, a number of radio stations have been closed down and in our efforts to ensure that we reach out to the majority of our countrymen and women, I’m appealing to Your Excellency to grant amnesty and get these radio stations that have been closed down to use their systems, their frequencies and activate their latent frequencies to reach out to the people in various languages so that we will be able to reach out to every nook and cranny of this country for all of us to fight and bring this pandemic to a halt,” Mr Ofosu-Ampofo pleaded with the President.

Responding to this request, however, President Akufo-Addo said he is surprised the NDC Chairman would make such a request of him when he (Akufo-Addo) did not close down the said radio station(s).

“I was even surprised about the amnesty for the radio stations. I think that the opportunity in the law is very clear as to how these radio stations, once they have been closed down or whatever it is, they were not closed down by me, that’s the first thing; it’s difficult for me to be the one to unlock them but the procedures are there. I’m surprised that a year or so later, those procedures are not being used to get the radio stations back on track.

“I don’t really think that there’s any big secret about them, the law is very clear, you make the application back to the National Communication Authority and you go through the various procedures. I don’t think you have to wait for a President for that to happen. But as I say, the ideas that have been expressed here are all very useful to us, we will take them very much on board and continue to work with them…”

The National Communications Authority (NCA), in 2017, closed down radio stations operating without renewed licences.