Ghana parliamentary committee visits GOtv
GOVERNMENT
Nana Appiah, Accra, Ghana | July 4, 2013, 7:36 a.m.
By Nana Appiah Acquaye, Accra, Ghana
GOtv Ghana Limited has taken the Parliamentary Select Sub Committee on Communications of Ghana’s Parliament on a tour to the Atomic Hill Digital Terrestrial Transmission site situated in Atomic Hill, a suburb of Accra.
Their visit forms part of the committee’s effort to acquaint itself with Digital Terrestrial Transmission, in line with Ghana’s quest to migrate from analogue to digital terrestrial television by 2015.
The Director of GOtv Ghana Limited, Cecil Sunkwa-Mills, briefed the committee on GOtv’s investments, operations and roll out plans in Ghana and its relevance to the upcoming digital migration.
According to him GOtv is the only pay television service provider in the country that uses the Digital Video Broadcast standard technology (DVB T2) which is the most advanced technology standard available in the market worldwide.
Speaking on behalf of the committee, Hon Herod Cobbina expressed their appreciation to GOtv Ghana Limited for giving them an insight into its operations, and for sharing with them the investment and set up needed at a Digital Terrestrial Transmission site. He applauded GOtv Ghana Limited for using the latest transmission technology, which he indicated is the standard adopted by Ghana for the migration of all transmissions from analogue to digital.
The Parliamentary Committee on Communications, compromising of eighteen members, is mandated by the parliament of the Republic of Ghana to deal with general matters relating to communications. Select Sub Committees are set up by Parliament to enable it perform its ultimate task of passing laws.
Select Committees are technical or specialized in nature and they provide very useful and rich input into the Parliamentary Processes. An essential provision in the Constitution is that every legislative proposal (a bill), after its first reading, must be referred to a committee that invites public participation in the legislative process. The Committee to which a bill has been referred must report to the House before the second reading and other stages of the bill can be taken. It is at the committee level that both the elected and the electorates can meet to discuss policies and legislative proposals.
