Declare payment of license fees –Media Group tells NBC

By Konyinsola Dawodu

Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has asked the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to disclose the status of payment of license fees by all broadcasting stations and platforms operating in Nigeria.

It urged the commission to make public the amount of indebtedness of each of the stations owing license fees.

The demand was made via a statement by the MRA Communications Officer, Idowu Adewale, on Monday.

In the statement, the organization asked the NBC to provide it with a list of all broadcasting stations and platforms operating in Nigeria licensed by the Commission and the amount that each of the licensed stations is required to pay as license fees.

It said it had forwarded a Freedom of Information (FOI) request addressed to the Director-General of the Commission, Mallam Balarabe Ilehah.

“MRA requested in the application the status of payment of each of the licensed broadcasting stations from the date of its license to date of the request, adding that for those licensed broadcasting stations that are indebted to the Commission, it should disclose the amount of indebtedness of each of the stations and the period covered by the amount,” the statement read.

They also urged the commission to provide a breakdown of the amount of indebtedness by each of the radio stations and each of the television stations owned by the respective State-owned broadcasting corporations.

Some broadcasting organizations, it would be recalled, were recently sanctioned by the commission for alleged failure to offset their outstanding license fees.