Torgbui (Chief) Paul. A. Crystal-DjirackorPast President
Torgbui (Chief) P. A. Crystal-Djirackor is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Crystal TV Group and the Founder and President of the Mega-Choice Digital Network. He is a seasoned Electronic Engineer with majors in broadcast systems design and engineering and a journalist with a penchant for broadcasting. He was instrumental in the setting up of a number of broadcasting operations across Africa, including Crystal TV – Ghana’s first private television station, the CP and MC channels and many other channels of the Crystal TV Group. He served as President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) from 2011 to 2013 during which period he served as a Member/Commissioner and as GIBA’s representative on the National Media Commission (NMC). He is a leading member of the Founding Fathers of GIBA and the chairman of the GIBA Council of Elders.
Torgbui is a distinguished media personality who has made an indelible mark not only on Ghana’s private media industry, but also in a number of African countries. He was involved in putting together regulations, standards and policies to guide many African countries in their quest to open up their airwaves in the early 1990s, allowing participation of the independent media in those countries.
In Ghana, he has made valuable contributions towards what is now the Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana. To allow for the participation of private press and broadcast media operations, he played a crucial role in the creation of Ghana’s Spectrum inventory, by redesigning and producing an elaborate Frequency plan with projections for future spectral needs, harmonizing existing communication services with newly planned services for the Frequency Registration and Controls Board (FRCB), which guided the allotments of frequencies to private operators in the broadcasting and mobile telecommunication sectors in the early 1990s as new industry players, before the National Communications Authority (NCA) came into being
Throughout the struggle for the liberalization of the nation’s airwaves in the 1990s, Torgbui has been a driving force, who to this day continues to execute his duties passionately in the interest of broadcasting organizations across Ghana and beyond. He continues to serve in various membership capacities on boards and committees to see to the growth of the broadcast industry here in Ghana and abroad.
He was invited by the NCA as part of the working group that put together the document in support of Ghana’s position on analogue to digital migration, leading to the signing of the Geneva 2006 [GE-2006] Agreement, establishing the Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting Plan at the Regional Radio Communications Conference (RRC-06) at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The agreement kick started the process, of aligning Ghana with the rest of the world towards the global migration from Analogue to Digital broadcasting. He was also involved in the setting up of technical standards and development of the Roadmap for Ghana’s migration from Analogue to Digital broadcasting and the implementation of the roadmap as approved by cabinet, from 2010 to 2018.
He served as Chairman of the Communications Sub-Committee of the National Digital Broadcasting Migration Committee, and Vice Chairman for the Technical subcommittee that put together the network structure and specifications for the establishment of the Nationwide Digital Terrestrial Television platform in Ghana. He is currently serving the nation on a Pro bono basis as Chairman of the National Technical Committee (TC 24) of the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), developing ICT and Broadcasting equipment standards for the GSA.