The Public Utilities Regulation Authority (PURA) has announced that it will finalise the revocation of radio stations that failed to renew their “expired” licenses before end of this week. 

The regulator said it has since issued notice of intention to revoke the licenses of about 80 per cent of radio stations whose broadcasting licenses have expired and failed to seek renewal. 

It said the affected radio stations were also asked to give reasons why PURA should not go ahead to revoke their licenses. 

Speaking at a government joint press conference this morning (22 July) Emma Mendy, director of legal and licenses of PURA, said: “we have issued a notice of intention to revoke licenses [of radiom] on 25 of June 2024. We have received a lot of applications within this period and a lot of representatives from the companies and individual people that were served with these notices. So, something is being done about this.

“We had a press conference about a week ago, where we informed the general public that we have received the approval of the honorable minister of information to revoke licenses that do not comply with [the directive].”

“Right now what we are doing is that there is an inter-ministerial stakeholder committee that has been established. We are going through applications that have been received. And hopefully by the end of this week a decision will be made about the licenses that will be revoked and you will be informed in due course. But something is being done about it. We have received a lot of applications, over 33 applications,” she added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba