A DANGEROUS GAMBIT

Aug 05, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

If broadcast licences issued under the PPPC were illegal, as the APNU+AFC coalition likes to argue, then the government should have taken steps to charge those involved with fraud and to lawfully revoke those licences.
But the government over the past two years has not charged anyone with the illegal issue of a broadcast licence. Why did they not do this after making so much noise about illegal licences?
Why has the government not approached the courts to annul any of the licences? Why did it not move to the courts to establish the so-called illegality of the licences issued? Why has it not rescinded any broadcast licence? Why was this not done, if as the government claimed, the PPPC acted illegally in the assignment of broadcast channels?
The government could have, by now, opted for a legal process to review the licences issued under the PPPC. Such an approach would have placed the government on a firm legal basis to act as it wanted to act. Yet, its spokespersons continue to parrot the view that the licences issued were illegal and that the government has to act and will act.
But why did the government choose to act in such a duplicitous manner? Why instead of charging persons, asking the courts to annul licences or themselves rescinding those licences, is the government instead asking broadcasters to reapply?
The request for reapplication is like asking the existing broadcasters to be complicit in their own dispossession. Why would any broadcaster do this?
What this means is that APNU+AFC will end up being accused of doing exactly what they have been accusing the PPPC of doing, deciding who gets licences and who does not.
The government is inviting serious problems for itself. As soon as the Broadcast Act is given assent by the President, it will be subject to legal challenges, including a challenge over this very indecent requirement that existing applicants reapply.
If and when the courts rule against the government, it will end up having to pay high damages for dispossession of property without compensation. Taxpayers will have to carry this burden.
The government is setting a dangerous and silly precedent. It does not seem to understand what it is doing, and the exposure to which it is subjecting the treasury. It is going to end up having to pay billions in damages as a result of this ill-advised decision. And to what end?
One of its contentions, which is not without some merit, is that the licences granted under the PPPC, have effectively hijacked the electromagnetic spectrum. Well, if the best channels on the spectrum have already been assigned, then the solution to this dilemma is not to repossess channels. There are technological solutions which can free up space.
The government needs to have technical advice on this matter. But one suspects that the government has its own motives in relation to the electromagnetic spectrum, and is going to refuse to renew licences to some existing licensees.
The government is setting a dangerous precedent. It did try, through the CHPA, to repossess house lots administratively, rather than through civil challenges. Those actions were challenged and the court ruled against the government.
In other instances, leases issued for land were cancelled. Some of these cancellations are being challenged before the courts.
We are therefore facing a dangerous situation as regards private property in this country. Those who have been lawfully assigned house lots are going to be worried when they see the government doing what it is doing in relation to broadcast licences, land leases and house lots.
People are going to become afraid that the properties which they have lawfully acquired from the government can be seized. After all, if there can be such brazen attempts at repossessions of land, house lots and now, possibly, broadcast licences, then the public will remain unsure of their property rights.

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