Five radio stations have pulled out of this year’s Radio and Television awards competition for the Ashanti region. The stations are Capital FM, Invisible FM, OTEC FM, Mercury FM and Garden City radio. Mercury FM was the first to withdraw from the awards programme scheduled to take place on Saturday evening.

Most of the stations that have pulled out cited procedural defects and lack of transparency as their reasons for withdrawing.

Capital FM cited unforeseen circumstances, while OTEC said they were not invited for the peer voting process used in selecting the award winners.

Invisible FM pulled out because of what it says are developing circumstances surrounding the event. They describe the whole event as misguided, misrepresented, unfavourable and a black hole in the radio industry.

Mercury FM has threatened to take legal action against Telemark, the organizers of the awards, should their names be included in the Awards programme. A statement issued by station made it clear that it did not want to have anything to do with the awards since it lacks transparency and fairness

Garden City radio has also written to Telemark, informing it of its withdrawal from the awards competition, also citing unfairness as their basis for the withdrawal.

Chief Executive Officer of Telemark, K. K. Owusu told JOY FM that the decision of the five radio stations to pull out is a surprise to him since all radio stations in the Ashanti region were invited to be part of the selection process. According to him, nominations forms were sent to radio stations which were not represented at the selection process. The forms were filled and returned with the exception of OTEC FM.

This is the second time that the programme is being held in Kumasi. LUV FM’s Saeed Ali Yakubu says there were problems last year with some award winners questioning how the decisions were arrived at, but the stations did not pull out as they are doing today.