Wider investigations at NCN unlikely

Nov 22, 2012 News

…recommendations made against staffers-Luncheon

Government is not likely to order a wider probe into the affairs of the National Communications Network (NCN) unless the Auditor General demands it.

Dr. Roger Luncheon

Responding to media queries, yesterday, on the status of a board-conducted investigation at the state-owned company, which controls a string of television stations and the only authorized radio station, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, also said that President Donald Ramotar has received a completed report. Ramotar is the Minister of Information.
Dr Luncheon admitted that a number of recommendations have been made regarding staffers. He, however, declined to go into details making it clear that the state is yet to “pronounce definitively” on the report.
He also said that a number of interim steps have been implemented at NCN.
Government will be considering making the report public, he added.
NCN came under the spotlight this year after allegations of fraud prompted the Board of Directors, headed by Dr. Prem Misir, to launch an investigation into payments to the entity for the Jingle and Song Competition hosted by Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) last year.
NCN was hired by GT&T to record and produce the popular show last year.
However, acting on information, the NCN Board launched a probe and discovered that Programme Manager,

Suspended: Martin Goolsarran

Martin Goolsarran, collected almost $4M and placed it in his personal bank account. There was also no written contract.
There were several other breaches discovered in the probe conducted by an independent auditor which led to Chief Executive Officer, Mohamed Sattaur, resigning. Goolsarran has been sent on suspension leave since June.
The probe was triggered after NCN, during the budget debates in the National Assembly, disclosed that it earned over $500M last year…yet wanted over $60M in subsidies from Government.
An angry opposition, claiming that NCN had been continuously biased in its coverage of them, reduced the NCN amount to $1.
During the probe, evidence had emerged that both Goolsarran and Sattaur allegedly pressured staffers to falsify documents, backdating them to fool the auditors. There were other indications of records deliberately being poorly kept. The opposition parties, the A Partnership For National Unity and the Alliance For Change (AFC) had both called for the resignation of the board.
There were also questions about the failure of the Board to pick up the breaches.