Pressure mounts for Govt to clear air on radio, TV licenses

Mar 12, 2013 News

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds this Thursday in the National Assembly is being forced to come clean on the allocation of radio and TV licences.
In fact, Parliamentarian Cathy Hughes has asked the Prime Minister to dish out all the details regarding the issuing of TV and radio licences since the current PPP/C took office in 1992.

Parliamentarian Cathy Hughes

Hughes wants the Prime Minister to say which channels and radio frequencies have been allocated for television and radio broadcast in Guyana.
Further, she has asked the Prime Minister to provide the names of the individuals and companies, including their directors, or entities that have been allocated or are using each allocated frequency/channel and the numeric frequency/channel assigned from 1992 to 2012.
Further, Hughes is asking the Prime Minister to state the date of granting of the licences for each of the frequencies/channels assigned.
In addition, Hughes has asked for a listing of the frequencies that are currently available for television and radio broadcasts.
The Prime Minister has also been asked by Hughes to state whether NCN is receiving monetary remuneration or fees for managing the entity, CCTV, on behalf of the Government of China.
Hinds has also been tasked with detailing the procedure that was followed by NCN to obtain the relevant licence for the CCTV operation and to say what fees were paid to the National Frequency Management Unit.
Veteran broadcaster, Enrico Woolford, has been pressing for the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) to reveal who has been allocated what frequencies in Guyana, but to no avail.
“The government of Guyana gave China a 24-hour channel on Guyana’s ‘limited electro-magnetic spectrum’ ahead of its own and CARICOM Citizens under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy mechanism,” Woolford recently charged.
Woolford has argued that aside from frequency allocation, the fact that Guyana has Chinese content TV on a frequency paid for and essentially operated by a foreign Government through a State to State mechanism, ought to raise eyebrows in any normal sovereign democratic nation.
According to Luncheon, in 2001, Jagdeo and former Opposition Leader Desmond Hoyte established a Task Force to ascertain how media houses operate and the entire question of granting licences for media houses. He said that the embargo was instituted following recommendations from the Task Force.
According to Woolford, who was part of the Task Force, he is concerned that the State has given a foreign state, in fact an emerging superpower, access to a frequency without a fair, equitable and transparent public process, while not displaying the same alacrity to issue licences to Guyanese and CARICOM nationals.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds

He pointed out that granting licences to a foreign country has to be done with full public knowledge, complete and transparent disclosure, since part of the country’s limited resources is being utilised.
Woolford said that it is important that the public should know what the existing frequencies are and what is available. He made reference to the fact that prior to the embargo, requests were made for local television, and to date nothing has been done.