By Alf Soninke
On Wednesday, I asked in a Facebook post: “In PURA-GSMs tariffs saga, can the Gambia competition and consumer protection commission address consumers’ plight?”
Well, the competition and consumer protection commission did issue a press release, and its clear-cut position on the issue is on record.
The public also needs to know that PURA, as a regulator, has woefully failed to properly monitor and regulate the broadcasting sub-sector. This explains why you have all sorts of questionable programs being aired by most of the commercial and community radio stations in the country these days. PURA as regulator and the ministry of Information as the licensing authority must be reminded that the radio broadcast spectrum is a limited public resource, owned by the public and entrusted to them to be administered properly – thus the licensing process for the radio and TV stations, GSM operators and others who want access to and who use the radio spectrum in their operations.
Now, when the present government trumpets that there are many more radio stations in the country, than any time in the past, as a way of boasting about its respect for press freedom credentials, then let the public ask whether some or most of what they hear on radio and TV every day – some of it deemed quite controversial by sane and right-thinking persons – is what they were licensed to be transmitting to their audience! Take, for example, the advertising of traditional medicine healers who claim to have a cure for all ailments under the sky!
Such advertising we know is in contravention of the position of the Gambia medical and dental council – which had in the past public frowned on such radio advertising; and, which radio announcements also openly contravene the regulations announced – and this is in the records – by the Health ministry’s very unit responsible for controlling the activities of traditional medicine healers.
And, I suspect it’s the same for other regulators like the Medicines Control Agency, as well as the Consumer Protection Agency.
Yet, every day we hear such adverts being carried regularly and religiously on almost all the radio stations licensed by the same government, with no consequences.
And, what is more troubling is the fact that the proprietors who should know better / who are expected to know and abide by the rules, are also engaged in such questionable advertising!
However, just like the GSM companies, it’s clear that all the proprietors of such private radio stations are after is the revenue, but are not in the least bothered by whether or not they are enabling the advertisers to possibly peddle scams. This is one other area the public’s attention needs to focus on.
This is because the radio spectrum being used by the broadcasters is public property – and is treated as such everywhere in the world – and is given to the broadcasters on trust and, consequently, they must not be allowed to misuse this valuable and precious national resource!
