Claims that the Ministry of Youth and Sports gave the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) $3 million in full payment for airing the 13th All African Games have been denied.
The state broadcaster called the revelation “shocking” and stated that the accusation is totally untrue.
In response to the claim, the Director General of the GBC stated in an interview that the organization was only paid $105,000 for covering the complete set of games that were held in Ghana from March 8–23, 2024.
On Monday, August 19, the Sports Ministry brought up the accusation before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.
“GBC was the official broadcaster for the 13th All African Games, and I can confirm that full payment has been made to GBC. I can’t remember the exact amount, but I know that it is in the excess of $3 million,” the Minister for Youth and Sports, Mustapha Ussif, told parliament.
“I think yesterday I was one of those who was shocked to learn that the minister of youth and sports said that they had paid GBC in excess of $3 million and I want to assure every Ghanaian and the public that GBC’s total benefit from the African Games was $105,000 us dollars equivalent. Nothing more was paid as a benefit to GBC. And that payment was as support for the fact that we dedicated an entire channel 24 hours. We suspended normal programming for the GTV Sports+ and dedicated it to the All African games. And for our role as the official broadcaster. that is what the GBC was paid and not in excess of $3 million,” he responded.
However, Professor Amin Alhassan stated that the GBC only received $105,000 in exchange for dedicating its channel.
Prof. Alhassan went on to say that the money was utilized to reduce the opportunity cost to the company.
“When you suspend a channel’s normal programming, there is an opportunity cost, so it’s used to offset the cost of the channel not doing regular programming. So there is a loss of business. So it’s important to point out that when you take an entire channel 24 hours for two weeks, it comes at a cost, and that was what the money was for. So it was for our revenue. $105,000 and not in excess of 3 million dollars.”
Source: newsthemegh.com