General News of Thursday, 27 September 2018

Source: starrfmonline.com

Ken Agyapong, Sam George in near brawl over StarTimes deal in Parliament

Kennedy Agyapong Kennedy Agyapong

A meeting by the Communications Committee of Parliament to discuss the controversial StarTimes deal has been suspended following a near brawl between Chairman of the Committee Kennedy Agyapong and a member Sam George.

The two have taken entrenched views over the propriety or otherwise of how the government contract was taken away from local company K-Net and awarded to the Chinese firm.

Mr. Agyapong has publicly stated K-NET unfairly treated his television station NET 2 by taking it off its platform when they were in charge of the deal.

Accordingly, the Assin Central Mp demanded abrogation of the K-NET deal with government. Sam George in a response told Starr News NET 2 was taken off the K-NET platform because of his inability to pay for satellite link charges. The two lawmakers held on to their views making it difficult for the meeting to continue.

“There was an issue that should not have happen in the first place, especially as there were visitors attending upon the committee. It was an embarrassing spectacle but we will try and resolve it internally,” a member of the committee Ras Mubarak told Starr News’ Parliamentary correspondent Ibrahim Alhassan.