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A direct attack on private newspapers
Govt. Ads withdrawal…
– Raphael Trotman
Leader of the Alliance for Change, Raphael Trotman says that the government’s latest position on the issuance of advertisements is tantamount to a direct attack on the private newspapers in Guyana.
He said that for the Government to know that the withdrawal of advertisement to the newspapers will hurt their income and to still withdraw the advertisement without warning, clearly smacks of subterfuge.
Raphael Trotman
Trotman said that the government has a right to place the advertisements in all mediums, not just electronic, adding that subterfuge is even more implicit in the context of the Guyana landscape.
He said that Guyana is not an electronically literate country as yet, and he agreed with his political counterpart, the leader of the Opposition Robert Corbin that the move is premature.
Corbin said that had President Bharrat Jagdeo already fulfilled his commitment of distributing the 90, 000 computers and had already completed the broadband network and the internet was the major means of communication, then the decision would make sense.
The AFC leader said that the advertisements serve a dual purpose in that apart from alerting contractors and service providers that there is an availability of some projects, it allows for transparency in the sense that it informs the nation as it relates to what the government is doing with taxpayers’ money.
Speaker of the National Assembly and Senior Member of the PPP when asked to comment on the issue yesterday said that he was not aware of the policies of the government as it relates to the placement of advertisements and as such would not be able to comment.
The Speaker informed that he would only be able to pronounce on matters relating to Parliament.
“I can’t make a comment on Government advertisements.”
In a government explanation issued recently, it was suggested that, “There are in fact very few examples that can be cited from the rest of the world where Government advertisements are placed in mainstream newspapers on a routine ongoing basis.”
The Government contends in its explanation that any serious examination of the comments by specific privately owned media houses would lead to the inescapable conclusion that the comments are motivated by nothing other than blatant self-interest and commercial considerations, and are devoid of any principle or objectivity.
Chief Whip of the Peoples National Congress Reform, Lance Carberry says that it does not take a rocket scientist to understand the thrust behind the current position as it relates to Government advertisements being withheld from newspapers.
Ralph Ramkarran
Carberry was at the time responding to media operatives during the party’s weekly press briefing yesterday.
He said that persons should not pretend when dealing with the issue, adding that it is a fact that the ruling administration’s attitude to the media houses that they do not consider to be compliant, has been to squeeze them economically.
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