- "We can’t do anything… it would have to go through Parliament. Parliament has been sitting on the Broadcasting Bill since 1993."
The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, has said his outfit is helpless when it comes to controlling TV content.
His comment comes on the back of reports that some spiritualists who appear on some TV channels in the country demand human parts from their clients to perform money-making rituals.
Over the weekend, two teenagers were arrested at Kasoa in the Central Region for allegedly killing 10-year-old Ismael Mensah for rituals. The police said their investigations reveal the two were allegedly acting on the orders of a fetish priest who demanded human parts to perform money-making ritual for them.
Speaking on Asaase Radio’s The Big Bulletin, Boadu-Ayeboafoh said until the broadcasting bill is passed the NMC cannot regulate content on the screens.
“We can’t do anything… it would have to go through Parliament. Parliament has been sitting on the Broadcasting Bill since 1993,” the NMC chairman told host Beatrice Adu.
He added: “So, for MPs to be accusing us, saying NMC is reneging, when did they pass the law to say NMC is not implementing or enforcing? In the absence of a broadcasting law it becomes very difficult for us to regulate.”
Lazy investigation
“We should bemoan some of the things that we see on our television and all that. But to impute that a heinous crime as this merely to the fact that somebody watched television, I think that it is too farfetched,” he said.
“To put it on a charge sheet that this is the reason why they did that, I think that this is a very lazy investigation.”
Court remand teenage suspects
Meanwhile, the two suspected murderers have been remanded to reappear in court on 20 April 2021.
Nicholas Kenni and Felix Nyarko are being held on suspicion of killing Ishmael Mensah at Atia Coca-Cola, a suburb of Kasoa in the Central Region.
The Ofankor circuit court, presided over by Rosemond Vera Ocloo, adjourned the case after the prosecutor asked for more time to investigate the case.
The court was informed that Kenni is 18 years old. Nyarko’s age is still under contention following his family’s refusal to disclose his age.
The case will be transferred to the high court at the next sitting, the presiding judge said.
Background
The two teenagers were arrested over the weekend over the suspected ritual murder.
The police said their investigations show that the two teenagers were allegedly acting on the orders of a fetish priest who demanded human parts to perform a money-making ritual for them.
Confession
According to the police, the duo confessed to killing Mensah on Saturday 3 April at the Coca-Cola suburb of Kasoa near the Great Lamptey Mills School.
The crime is said to have taken place in an uncompleted building. The police said the suspects hit the victim with clubs and building blocks several times, killing him in the process.
It is said that they proceeded to bury the boy in the uncompleted building, hoping to return in the evening for the body, but neighbours who chanced on the remains raised the alarm, leading to their arrest.
The body of the dead child has since been exhumed and deposited at the Police Hospital for autopsy.
Fred Dzakpata
Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online
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