Mrs. Ursula Owusu Ekufful, Minister for Communications
The Akufo-Addo led government has vowed to keep Radio Gold, a subsidiary of Network Broadcasting Limited owned by venerable Ato Ahwoi, a chieftain of the opposition National Democratic Congress and send hundreds of workers out of employment, a plan decried by many right thinkers as dangerous for the media space.
This shutdown was the first step in New Patriotic Party’s plan to clamped down on opposition media assumed to be very critical in exposing the rot in the Akufo-Addo led administration.
Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekufful is celebrating the forcibly removal of what she claims to be a major torn in her flesh in her constituency.
The Ablekuma West Lawmaker says she has heaved a major sigh of relief since she closed Radio Gold.
Mrs. Ekuful is reported to have sworn to her Constituency Executives that she would not open the station until after the 2020 elections.
Some Executives of the Ablekuma West branch of NPP have been stressing the sector minister’s position to indefinitely keep the station off air during public discussions over the fate of Radio Gold.
On the fate of workers of the media outlet, Ursula Owusu is on record to have said staff of Radio Gold would starve to death and that she would never open the station.
According to Ursula Owusu, the station until its closure made it a point to give her constituents their platform to air their grievances.
For Ursula, Radio Gold dedicated too much airtime to the challenges in her constituency especially the state of the roads.
Radio Gold is in Lartebiorkorshie, an adjoining constituency to Dansoman, the headquarters and hive of activity in the Ablekuma west constituency.
The Ablekuma west constituency is part of the immediate coverage area of Radio Gold.
Ursula Owusu believes Radio Gold is too close for comfort because the station is the first point of call whenever her constituents feel aggrieved about some developmental challenges in the constituency.
She believes the station was making her unpopular and issues concerning the state of roads and development in the constituency would have assumed a bigger proportion if she had not taken off radio.
For the communications minister, the absence of the radio has deprived aggrieved residents of an outlet to vent their frustrations, hence silencing them.
Acknowledging the prowess of the station, she said, her re-election would have been made difficult if the station was working.
The shutdown of its frequency has forced the station to shift the transmission of radio stations to online streaming apps to maintain an online presence from March 2019.
The media group, while hoping the new direction will transform it into a modern 21 century digital content company, Ursula Owusu has expressed her happiness at the plight of the radio station and sworn to worsen it.
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