Failure to recognize a major resource

Apr 20, 2013 Editorial

A report out of Jamaica was most revealing. And coming on the heels of an announcement that Guyana had literally given away two cable frequencies to people who happened to be close to the former president, Bharrat Jagdeo, one is left to wonder whether the people who lead this country are actually aware of the worth of the assets.
This question might not have arisen had it not been for some parliamentarians who opted to seek answers in the National Assembly to the allocation of the radio and television frequencies. Shortly before he demitted office, Jagdeo decided to maintain his campaign promise to liberalise radio. He allotted frequencies to about a dozen individual operators.
What caused the problem was the manner in which the allocation was made. Three operators were granted five frequencies, ostensibly to allow for their development of repeater stations. Many of the others were given single frequencies and they were all apparently entertainment radios.
Above all, there was the allocation of two cable frequencies. There was no known application for cable channels except for an old one by a cable operator who established a service on the lower East Bank Demerara. The operator who began about twelve years ago paid a million dollars for a licence to broadcast television signals. Those were the early days of cable operations in Guyana.
For some reason the government sought to confine the operations to a specific location. One decade later former President Bharrat Jagdeo announced that he had allocated two cable licences to a company that is already providing a wireless cable service and to another entrepreneur.
It is here that the Jamaica decision begins to be seen in a particular light. From all appearances, Jamaica is a far more developed country than Guyana. It has facilities of which Guyana can only dream. It is a country that has been hit repeatedly by hurricanes only to rebound and rebuild the damaged parts of the country to emerge better than Guyana.
This is a country that has repeatedly produced Olympic champions and academics who developed patents and above all, some of the best tourist resorts in the region. Like any country, Jamaica has fallen on hard times but it continues to maintain an exchange rate which when compared to Guyana, forces people to ask if Guyana is playing in a high-scoring cricket match against the United States.
This said, one must wonder whether it is that Jamaica is more technologically savvy when it comes to communication. Jamaica recognizes the importance of the spectrum. In fact it recognizes the importance of intellectual property as does the other countries in the Caribbean. Guyana is the exception.
Jamaica knows the cost of intellectual property and the cost of acquiring things via the communication network. It recognizes that any communication network is expensive so it has attached a high cost to its cable. Guyana has not been accustomed to paying for many things. Broadcasts are treated as though they are in the zone for a free for all. The result is that the country has not spent much time on productions that could be sold as intellectual property.
Given the productive capability of the society most of the signals are pirated from the developed world and broadcast for a fee on the present cable channels. In the past these signals were offered free of cost to the wider Guyanese society.
It is this that must have caused the government to behave as though it is authorized to offer state property as though it is coming from mother’s breast and so treat cable as a something that can be had for little or nothing.
The shocking thing is that in the face of the revelation that Jamaica has placed a high value on its cable Guyana has not demonstrated that it may have made a mistake when it gave two cable frequencies for free to two people closely associated with former President Bharrat Jagdeo. Instead, the party is angry that there has been this revelation.
The society knows that all is not lost; President Donald Ramotar could revoke the frequency allocations and so undo all that former President Jagdeo did just before he demitted office. He could then proceed to make the allocations in a manner consistent with what would be done by any other country.

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