A-10 Member Board for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, GBC has been sworn into office by the Chairman of the National Media Commission, NMC Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo.
Members of the GBC Board include; Mrs. Efua Ghartey, Dr. Kwame Nyame Kye, Mrs. Ama Serwah Nerquay Tetteh, and Peter Djakwah.
The others are Samuel Kojo Insiaba, Dr. Kwaku Tanor Debrah, Thomas Broni, Yaw Adjei Afriyie Nketia Director-General of the Corporation, Professor Amin Alhassan.
The NMC Chairman, said as a Public Service, it is imperative to hold to the truth and defend the interests of Ghanaians by being well informed of issues.
“We must at all times defend the interests of the people of this country, we can best do that when we can inform ourselves because if we are misinformed then we cannot properly inform”.
He urged the media to educate themselves from time to time to be better position to educate the public.
The Director-General of GBC, Professor Amin Alhassan said the Corporation runs a Public Service and not Commercial services.
“A large chunk of our operations is Public Service and not Commercial Service”.
He said the structure of corporate governance is incomplete without Board of Directors hence the need for board members.
“The previous Board supervised the inauguration of a transformational process called transforming GBC from bureaucracy to business. Witnessed massive training and reorientation of staff, some 450 of them.
It also saw a general retooling of studios and revamping of our contents. So in effect, the three key points of the broadcast value chain; Human resource, the equipment and content were positively impacted and given birth to what we now call a new GBC”.
Professor Amin-Alhassan said GBC finances everything from its Internally Generated Fund, IGF.
“We do business to generate the funds to provide for ourselves what we would have otherwise waited for the government”.
The new board he said will take over the mantle to oversee the consolidation of the transformational process.
“Transforming GBC from bureaucracy to business in its simplified definition is about ensuring that we put cost to all aspects of our operations and ensuring that we monetize our commercial operations. For our public service obligation, we cost services, and where it is possible, we try to recover the cost”.
He said the corporation is working on developing modalities for costing every aspect of Public Service.
”It is important we put in our books the actual cost of public service”, he posited.
Reacting to how the corporation is compared to other private media stations, Professor Amin Alhassan said, ”oftentimes we are being compared to what the private media out there do, we will respond by saying that, public service broadcasting is not cheap, and that is why everywhere in the world, in every democracy, public service broadcasting is generously funded”.
He said the Corporation is guided by the ”principles of universality of access and diversity of context”.
The new Board Chairman, Professor Samuel Debrah expressed gratitude to the NMC and the President for the confidence reposed in them to manage the affairs of the GBC which is a national asset.
“I will like to thank the National Media Commission for giving us this opportunity to serve our dear country. We on our part will work tirelessly to make sure that in the end your reliance on our abilities shall not be misplaced.”
He said as a board, they would be mindful that they have a mandate to ensure that GBC continues to be a tool for nation-building and education and play a major role in engendering national development.
