Coalition, others owe NCN over $190M

Aug 21, 2020 News

Minister of Public Information, Kwayme McCoy

The state-owned National Communications Network, which runs a string of radio and television stations, has reached the brink of financial collapse with over $190M owed by the previous David Granger-led A Partnership For National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition administration.
The monies were for advertisements for the March 2020 elections.
In his first media engagement, Minister of Public Affairs, Kwayme McCoy, disclosed that an assessment conducted into the operations of the Guyana Chronicle, the Department of Public Information (DPI) and NCN unearthed troubling findings.
That report has been lodged with President Irfaan Ali.
The whopping $190M is owned to NCN, according to Minister McCoy, by mostly ministries and government agencies.
Further, he said a large chunk of that sum, approximately $16.7M is owned by the Coalition for ads.
The assessment of these agencies, Minister McCoy reported, found “a lack of prudent financial management, nepotism where the entities seem have been just for friends and family, poor inter-personal relations, poor working conditions and polarization of staff.”
“This company has been receiving government subvention and when we examine what the company has in terms of finances, you see it’s in a very terrible situation and in terms of when you examine what NCN has to work with today, the tools, there has been a degeneration of the resources there – things are totally bad,” he added.
He deemed the situation “very frightening” adding that the novel Coronavirus pandemic dampened revenue flow at the agency.
In the case of Guyana Chronicle and DPI, a significant management deficiency was found. He described the situation as “top-heavy staffing” adding that “it’s just about providing opportunity for friends and family and the critical matters are left lagging.”
Additionally, Minister McCoy said that a series of financial management interventions will be conducted over the next few weeks.

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