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There seems to be no record of a new entity
Advertising is the lifeblood of any media organization. A newspaper may print enough copies to satisfy the reading population of a country, selling every issue, but at the end of the day it will be operating at a loss.
The cost to a publishing company of producing a newspaper without advertising could be crippling unless that company charges a rate that would compensate.
For that reason newspapers have a formula that dictates the advertisement to news space ratio. The larger the newspaper the greater the advertising space should be because as the number of pages increases so too does the cost to the publisher.
When the government withdrew its advertising from Stabroek News, the reason was that it was going to secure the best deal for the taxpayer. That deal was to place the advertisements with the newspaper with the widest circulation and that made sense.
The wider the circulation, the greater the possibility of people seeing the advertisement. But the government also issued a caveat.
It said that it was going to also advertise with the state-owned Chronicle because it is the duty of the government to support any state entity.
That could be understood, and was understood until the new newspaper emerged with a circulation that is undoubtedly smaller than that of any of the newspapers already in existence.
Lo and behold, there appeared in those pages some Government advertisements. Surely this was ground for objection because the government was going outside its stated norm.
It was saying that the comments about seeking the widest possible circulation did not represent the whole story.
Surely, when the first Government advertisement appeared in those pages one would have expected a comment from Stabroek News because that was the newspaper that was forced to wage a campaign for a restoration of advertisements. Instead, this passed almost unnoticed when it should not have.
The government advertisement cake is only of a certain size and once there is a wider dissemination some existing agency must suffer.
This should not be allowed unless the government comes out to say that it has changed its outlook about advertising.
Recently, there was a report that the Guyana Revenue Authority was conducting investigations of certain entities for the purpose of deducing whether all operations were above board.
And this is good. This newspaper has always suggested that the GRA investigate all the taxpaying entities to ensure that it collects every cent due to it.
For such an investigation to be done there must be records of the operations of a company. It must first of all be registered and these days it must be assigned a taxpayers’ identification number (TIN) once its annual turnover exceeds $10 million. For any newspaper the turnover must be in excess of $10 million.
We have checked the records and can find none for the new companies that operate under the umbrella of Queens Atlantic Investments Inc. The Deeds Registry has no record of any of the companies being registered and this then is cause for concern for more than one reason.
For example, if there is to be litigation, then the litigant will be hard pressed to determine whom to sue. In fact he cannot. The use of a name is also something that must be registered.
In Guyana no newspaper can use the name Kaieteur News or Stabroek News, or the Guyana Chronicle. These are registered trademarks. Has the new newspaper been registered?
Another factor would involve the payment of taxes. If a company is not registered then there is no way it can be located for tax purposes. Surely the GRA is aware of this. It must be and if indeed it is aware then one must question the reason for its silence.
There are many things surrounding the operations of Queens Atlantic and it is hoped that some of these would be explained on Tuesday when the Privatisation Unit in association with the GRA and Go-Invest hosts a seminar on Guyana’s privatisation and taxation policies and practices.
We will learn about tax concessions and tax holidays; we would find out why some companies failed to secure such; and we would know what to expect when a new investor appears on the local scene.
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