By Tabora Bojang
The chairperson of the national broadcaster GRTS has lamented before the National Assembly’s Public Enterprise Committee the decision by the government to liberalise the airwaves without a guiding “policy or legislation” which gave rise to unhealthy competitions in the broadcasting sector with “GSM operators running television” stations.
She made these remarks after concerns and queries by several lawmakers who observed that GRTS is vested with much powers and opportunities by its Act that it could exploit to be a viable national broadcaster and raise revenue without dependence on government subvention.
However, Mrs Fatou Jagne-Senghor stressed that even though the national broadcaster enjoys an edge in terms of public subsidy, liberalisation of the market comes at the expense of effective competition since there is no regulation for a level playing field.
She further charged that the institution ceased receiving subsidy when a new policy was introduced by the government for GSM operators to be charged monthly levies to run the institution but lamented that disbursement of these levies has been inconsistent with 70 percent of it spent on salaries.
“GRTS will have to be subsidised and without the grants we will not survive. This is not a commercial entity; it is a public service provider and cannot generate revenues like any other commercial entities so obviously a form of government subsidy must exist for the institution to be viable.
“When the GRTS Act was adopted, the landscape was different and it had the monopoly but today there is liberalisation with about five TV stations and quite a number of commercial radio stations. So we have liberalised the airwaves without a policy and a law which brings a lot of trouble because we have GSM operators owning television stations! That in itself is a problem because it is anti-competitive and does not exist anywhere. It has not been addressed and this is why we need a legislation to clarify the role of the public service to enable us reposition it and also to have private sector growth but also to compete fairly,” she added.
GRTS managing director Abdou Touray said the national broadcaster has come of age especially in terms of equipment. “When GRTS started in the ’90s, it was a very viable institution, we could all see a lot of support but comparing it to now, there has been a lot of changes,” he argued.
Touray said with the establishment of Digital Gambia Limited which is tasked with signal transmissions, the role of the national broadcaster is to focus on content production and provide news and other programmes to the public.
“Challenges have overwhelmed the institution. The levy is inconsistent and not sustainable to keep us operating. We receive between D6 to D9 million and 80 percent goes into salary and the liabilities we inherited. So how do we invest when the little we have is not sustainable for our operation?”
