Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has asserted President John Dramani Mahama asking for mercy for the radio stations shutdown by the National Communication Authority (NCA) was nothing but a public relations stunt to calm tempers.

“You cannot break it and pretend to be fixing it,” he said on the floor of Parliament, today, Thursday, June 12, 2025.

The NCA earlier today shutdown 64 radio stations over regulatory breaches. Later, President Mahama requested for mercy for affected stations.

“The President believes that regulatory compliance must take into account the need to uphold and enhance media freedom, and that requiring radio stations to shut down while awaiting the regularisation of their authorisation could limit the space for expressing such freedoms,” a statement from the Presidency explained.

“The president’s clemency is a belated thing,” Afenyo-Markin said.

“It is because of the public backlash. I would want the NCA and the [Communication] Ministry to be strongly guided by the Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution.”

“A regulation cannot overreach and override an express constitutional provision. In the least, the regulation is to guide but not to impede and stampede the process.”

The shutdown of Asaase Radio, Wontumi FM, Happy FM, and others “must not ever happen again,” he said.