NO SANCTION FOR NCN- INFORMATION MINISTER JAGDEO
Information Minister and President Bharrat Jagdeo has stated that he had ordered the controversial channel 21 to stop broadcasting to avoid further controversy until he has enough time to examine the circumstances.
When asked whether a sanction will be imposed he noted that NCN initially complied with his instructions and now he will “have to examine the circumstances,” under which the station was operating. He noted that he was told that the station was part of NCN’s ongoing plan and they already had the frequency.
The Channel falls under the umbrella of the National Communications Network (NCN) and the head of operations of NCN, Martin Goolsarran has stated that the station is not a new station but had been operating in Berbice all along “but was taken down,” sometime now.
According to Goolsarran, the station was broadcasting at the upper end of Corentyne and was not a new state channel. Channel 21 was to be transmitting to the community of New Amsterdam while 15 and 25 transmitted along the Corentyne and the entire region respectively.
A popular television Station owner in Berbice is applauding the decision of President Minister Jagdeo in ordering the controversial channel 21 closed. In an invited comment the proprietress of Little Rock Television Station which operates on the channel 10 frequency told Guyana Times that she was happy with the decision. Pearl Dindial said that since NCN started operations in Berbice, the revenue market has narrowed down although they had initially started as a relay station.
The station eventually started doing birthday greetings, death announcements, and local programming which made competition even stiffer for the two existing stations; Dave’s Television Station and Little Rock TV.
She noted that when she noticed that NCN had started a ‘new station’ she was disappointed because she had approached President Jagdeo in the past regarding NCN ‘literally taking away her customers’.
This according to her has made it difficult for her to maintain a staff of twenty persons and pay heavy utility bills every month “which was not fair,” since the semi-Autonomous body would receive a subsidy from Government when the year closes. She noted that although the market is there, the rules should be followed.
When the head of NCN Berbice operations Faizal Jaffarally was contacted he stated that he did not have knowledge of the other station (channel 21). However this newspaper was reliably informed that construction to extend the channel 15 building went on for quite some time before it opened. Both channels were operated from this building located in the compound of the New Amsterdam Technical Institute compound.
Meanwhile Edwin De Barros a resident of number 60 village Corentyne has stated that he feels that Government is biased. He pointed out that the administration was withholding approval for C.N Sharma to extend his signal while channel 69 was broadcasting on channel 5 in Berbice and NCN opened a new station. De Barros in his letter said “as a resident of Berbice, I am concerned regarding the issue of Television in my country…the administration is displaying behavior that is so biased and unfair to C.N Sharma and the people of Berbice.”
He added that C.N should not be excluded from being granted leave to extend his signal as he stands in rank with Tony Vieira and Rex Mc Kay as the pioneers of Television in Guyana. De Barros speculated that the move to keep C.N’s application stagnant may be triggered by political motives by the administration and is a conflict of interest on the part of the information Minister.
Berbician James Marakhan has also added his voice to the heated issue.
Marakhan in a letter to the media said that “a few weeks ago, a notice had appeared on NCN in Berbice informing Corentyne viewers that they would now access channel 21 programming on channel 25. Marakhan said that Channel 21 in the past was used to relay NCN GT feeds but since opening became “a new channel with separate programmes from NCN Georgetown, movies, and advertisements,” along with GINA programmes.
taken from Guyana Times
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