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Allocation illustrates discrimination against non-state media

Sep 07, 2010 News

The Government’s position on the placement of advertisement is not clear and is not an official People’s Progressive Party decision, according to a senior member of the party who spoke to this newspaper on the condition of anonymity.
He said that the position makes no sense. Furthermore, it is clear that based on the allocations of the advertisement placed in the Guyana Chronicle on Sunday last, the move is discriminatory against non-state media.
The official said that for the government to say that it has a dedicated website for the placement of advertisement and then turn and put a “ton of ads” in the Guyana Chronicle makes no sense.
The official said, too, that the issue must be viewed in the context of the government’s view of the private media in Guyana.
If the government was really serious about cutting costs then it would jump at the offer made by this newspaper on Sunday last, he added.
Kaieteur News in a front page comment, made an offer to the government to carry most if not all off the government advertisements free of cost.
This newspaper had stated that the decision that government advertisements will now be done via a designated website on the Internet, is an indication that this policy has now evolved into open warfare against both newspapers, and this latest development in redirecting ads from the private media is intended to financially suffocate the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News.
This newspaper had also stated that the government claims that placing ads on the Internet rather than in the newspapers will result in savings to taxpayers. It said that it respected the right of the government to seek greater value for money, but also feels that the very purpose of these ads would be defeated by limiting their access only to the Internet.
“The public, we believe, has an interest in receiving information about Government contracts and in the procurement of goods and services. By advertising in the print media, accountability and transparency are served, and the public’s right to information is respected and observed,” Kaieteur News noted.
Alliance for Change Leader, Raphael Trotman, recently said 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.
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. It informs the nation as it relates to what the government is doing with taxpayers’ money.

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