The Minister of Lands, Regional Government, and Religious Affairs, Honourable Hamat NK. Bah, claimed on Tuesday that the former Minister of Information, Demba Ali Jawo, had granted TV licences to GSM operators without the cabinet’s consent.
Bah claims that the government chose not to grant licences to GSM carriers when Jawo was the Minister of Information. But Jawo is said to have disregarded this ruling and given licences to Africell and Q Group.
At a joint news conference hosted by the Ministry of Information at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre in Bijilo, Minister Bah made these accusations.
“Owning a TV and radio station is incompatible with owning a sizable GSM company.” How are the media going to raise the necessary funds to run ads? The media outlets should receive the million dalasis from the GSM businesses in order for them to expand, grow, and generate revenue. In order for the media to profit and the advertising sector to expand, Cabinet makes choices rather than granting licences to GSM companies. When we returned to the cabinet and I asked the question, D.A. Jawo, who was Minister at the time, was listening to me as a senior journalist. Despite our request that they not issue a licence, he claimed that we had already done so. You are now victims of that choice because Qcell will need to pay you for your advertisements. No, since Africell has a radio as well as a TV and radio. Where are you going to acquire your money? He said, “D.A. Jawo is from your own Industry.”
Jawo received more criticism from Bah for not doing enough to assist the media while serving as the Information Minister.
He underlined the necessity for funding for media organisations to invest in employee training, facility upgrades, and improved operations. Bah emphasised the value of government funding for media organisations looking to expand and become more professional.
According to Hon. Bah, improving media capacities will have a major positive impact on the calibre and efficiency of the media in the nation.
He thinks that by working with the Gambia Press Union to investigate income generating and media assistance, Gambia might succeed where other nations have failed.
Hon. Bah also said that the president has given him orders to provide specific media outlets land in order to help down their rental costs.
A few weeks ago, the President gave me instructions to ensure that certain media houses receive land because they are paying exorbitant rent. In order to ensure that we offer land for these media outlets to lower their rental rates, I have already instructed a section inside the Ministry of Lands to oversee that procedure,” he informed the press.
Damba Ali Jawo responded to the accusations made by Hon. Hamat Bah on his Facebook page, emphasising that the cabinet carefully considered and granted each licence application for radio and television activities. He said it’s false to say that by granting the Q Group a licence, he defied a cabinet decision.
Jawo said that the Q Group established Core Broadcasting and Multimedia Company Limited, a legally independent organisation that complied with all PURA licencing requirements. He emphasised that his conclusions were sound legally and supported by careful diligence, and that prior decisions had permitted such licences.
Although I acknowledge that granting broadcast licences to GSM businesses may not be the best course of action, there were certain mitigating circumstances that made the licences warranted. First of all, the Q Group established a distinct company, Core Broadcasting and Multimedia Company Limited, which applied for the licences and was legally distinct from the GSM company, rather than QCell. Consequently, PURA’s due diligence revealed that the company complied with all licencing requirements, hence there was no legal reason to refuse it one. Who am I to disregard the advice of the professionals in the field?
“An additional mitigating factor was that, a few years prior, another GSM company had already been granted a licence to operate a radio station, setting precedent,” DA Jawo stated.
As a cabinet minister, D.A. Jawo said, Mr Bah should have known that the information minister was the final cog in the machine that grants a media outlet an operating licence.
“I completely relied on the technicians’ opinion, particularly that of PURA, whose job it is to conduct due diligence to ascertain who has fulfilled the requirements to be granted a broadcast licence. As a result, Mr. Bah was unjust to claim that I disregarded the cabinet’s recommendations, as that was not the case.
He said PURA would not have recommended awarding licences for QTV, QRadio, and all the other media licences he signed as a minister if they did not believe the procedure followed the law.
Ironically, QTV, which he believes shouldn’t have been granted a licence to exist, was live-broadcasting his comments. Mr. Bah also seemed to imply that I had a personal stake in granting those licences, but he emphasised, “I would challenge anyone to produce even the slightest piece of proof that any of the broadcast licences that I had approved had benefitted me personally.”