GBC TO BLOCK TV SIGNALS
As part of strategies to ensure effective
Television License fee collection in the country, plans are being considered to
introduce devices that will block television signals to all unlicensed
television sets.
Additionally, the payment of the Fee will be enforced with the
arrest and prosecution of Tv set owners who blatantly refuse to pay the Fee to
deter other people from deliberately sabotaging the law.
The Coordinator of TV
License Fee Unit of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Pastor Ebenezer Botwi, made
these known in Kumasi at a training programme for selected staff of the
Fidelity Bank.
The training in Kumasi, the second after a similar one for staff
of the Fidelity Bank in Accra nearly a week ago is aimed at strengthening the
capacity of selected staff of the Bank in registering prospective Tv License
fee payers at their branches.
It is an initiative of the TV License Collection
Unit of the GBC with support of the Management of the Bank.
The Kumasi training
saw selected Tellers from branches of the Fidelity Bank in the Eastern,
Western, Central, Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Northern regions go through the TV
License Law, the reasons for the payment and collection of the TV License Fee,
the categories of the Fee and the penalties prescribed by the law for
defaulting tv set owners.
They were also trained in electronic registration of
the prospective payers following which some of them had a hands-on
demonstration of their understanding of the systems.
The Head of the Tv License
Fee Collection Unit and Acting Director of Finance of the GBC, Pastor Ebenezer
Botwi, noted that as the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation is established to
promote national ideals such the cultural and moral standards while engendering
patriotism among the citizenry, it is the responsibility of every eligible
resident in the country to contribute towards maintenance of the national
public broadcaster.
Pastor Botwi warned that if people continue to resist
payment of the tv license fee, the Corporation with the support of government,
will be forced to use all available legitimate means to compel payment.
Such
strategies will include the arrest and prosecution of recalcitrant defaulters
as well as a deliberate blocking of television signals to any television set
that remains unlicensed after sometime.
The Head of Transaction Banking of
Fidelity Bank, Samuel Blay, noted that since the first training programme in
Accra, there has been an appreciable improvement in the collection of the TV
License Fee and is therefore hopeful that after Kumasi event, the situation
would be even better.
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