President promises broadcast legislation for next year

Aug 31, 2009 News

…AFC to table their draft in October

Dismissing the President’s notion that there will be broadcast legislation by next year, Alliance for Change Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan said that the head of state was being mischievous since, “he has gotten wind of the AFC’s intention to present its Draft to the National Assembly in October.”
Ramjattan also recalled that the President had lied to the nation already as it relates to the Freedom of Information Legislation.

President Bharrat Jagdeo

President Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday whilst urging the businessmen to invest more in Guyana, promised that by next year there will be Broadcast Legislation and as such the government monopoly on radio will be broken and private individuals will be allowed to access radio licences.
As it relates to the granting of licences for additional television stations, the President told the attendants at the Private Sector Commission dinner that Guyana already has in excess of 20 television stations and he did not want a replete of squatting on the airwaves.
The National Assembly in December voted against a motion tabled by the Opposition, Alliance For Change (AFC) member Sheila Holder titled ‘Access to local and external television channels, other than NCN channels, at Linden’.
In presenting the motion, Holder said that it was after the people of Linden had expressed ‘disgust and frustration’ to members of the AFC with being limited to viewing the State-owned NCN Channel, that the motion was submitted.
She posited that the restriction of other television operators to broadcast in that community was a violation of the various conventions and the Constitution of Guyana, which guaranteed the freedom of expression and the freedom to receive information.
Other Opposition speakers, including Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin, forwarded similar arguments while others posited that the denial of the other television operators to transmit programmes to Linden was discriminatory.
Replying to the arguments, People’s Progressive Party member, Gail Teixeira, reminded members that the genesis of the issue rested in the communiqué signed between the Leader of the Opposition and President Bharrat Jagdeo, which had stated that no new licences would be issued until the broadcast legislation is in place.

AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan

During the said debate, Teixeira had also indicated a willingness to shy away from the communiqué and look into the possible cases where licences could be accessed.