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AFC Councilor accuses NCN of refusing advertisement
Alliance for Change (AFC) Region Four Councillor and Member of the National Executive of the party, Michael Carrington is peeved with a position taken by the National Communication Network (NCN) for refusing to carry his advertisement.
Carrington says that one of his mandates as the Region Four Councillor is to try to help the development of communities, “I try to help to get information out but I’m being discriminated against.”
Carrington said that he went to NCN recently to place an advertisement but was told that it could not be aired because it has the words Alliance For Change in it.
He said that he approached NCN because they have the largest coverage as it relates to the radio and that is why he wanted to advertise with them.
The advertisement reads, “Alliance For Change Region Four Councillor Michael Carrington hereby notifies (sic) our young people, that if you are looking for a job and cannot find one, then create one for yourself by learning a skill. There are thousands of self-employed jobs opportunities in the area of skill trade, agriculture, processing and marketing, you just have to be wise and think. God has given you the power of the mind to do so. This is my advice to you for this year, learn to earn, by learning a skill, if I did it, you can do it.”
He said that he believes that the refusal to air the advertisement was as a result of political discrimination and pointed to the fact that the advertisement was not political in nature.
Carrington said that he was at the time attempting to find out the cost of the advertisement and when it could possibly be aired but was told that the advertisement could not be carried, period.
“I just wanted to encourage young people to empower themselves but they told me that because the words Alliance for Change Region Four Councillor was in, they refused to carry it.”
Carrington said that, “this is discrimination…you can’t say you’re not going to carry my advertisement because the AFC name is in it…everyday you are seeing something about the PPP on NCN.”
In January of this year the AFC had cause to condemned the political machinations of the NCN administration, as reflected in the recent decision taken not to air the Party’s New Year message just after midnight on January 1, 2011.”As before, when similar decisions were taken to deny the AFC the right to access the state’s television, incredulous excuses were once again provided,” the party said in a statement released to the media.
“This latest assault on the people’s constitutional right to access information and to form opinions of their own follows a series of similar situations where the AFC was not allowed to air its message on the Guyanese tax funded television and radio stations in Georgetown and Linden…
“This raises serious issues of fairness, equal access to the state’s resources, political intimidation, and suffocation. More particularly, it brings into sharp focus, the lack of a functioning democracy; even as autocratic characteristics daily become clearly defined and recognisable,” the party said.
It posited that where a parliamentary party is repeatedly shut out of the state run television and radio, it says something about the presence of a healthy democracy and makes a clear statement about the manner in which the state’s resources are going to be used and abused by the ruling party in the upcoming elections.
The party at that time had called on President Bharrat Jagdeo, as the statutory authority for broadcast issues, “to state why his government continues to discriminate against the AFC and other opposition parties in denying them a voice in the state-owned print and electronic media?”
The AFC said that it will continue to agitate for equity and an end to state lawlessness, and promises, when in government, to liberalise the state media by reviewing the role of GINA and the NCN, and setting transparent standards for the processing of licenses for the ownership, operation and management of radio and television stations and newspapers.”
Alliance for Change (AFC) Region Four Councillor and Member of the National Executive of the party Michael Carrington
The party said that it is its fundamental position that Media must be a tool to advance a nation and not to keep it underdeveloped as we see today.
“The people of Guyana are asked to take notice of the continuous stifling of free speech and opinion, and to prepare to make the right turn in 2011 by supporting the AFC’s quest for a free society by voting for change at the upcoming elections.”
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