Kaieteur News Not in any text books
PAGE 6
Saturday February 04, 2017
NCN has refused to broadcast our paid political programmes
DEAR EDITOR, When the PPP/C was in government, the PNC opposed the fact that NCN would not carry their ads nor cover their events. They even voted to remove the subsidy from NCN. Now that the PNCC is in power, they are refusing to carry our paid programs. The URP executive met with the lower management of the NCN (Ron Robinson was there at the time), concerning the broadcasting of our program – URP Practical Talk. They give us the cost for the program ($35,000 + VAT), the day we will be on (Tuesdays),
and the time that the program would be aired (19:30 hours). We were told that we could pay an additional amount ($10,000 + VAT) to have their Berbice station carry our program also. We were very encouraged by this news, as we thought that democracy had returned to the governmentowned, public, media houses. However, our hopes were dashed when we went to pay. We were told that our program request has gotten to senior management and that there was a problem. We were told by a senior manager that, “The players have changed
but the game has remained the same!” What we shockingly found out is that the station will not air any program from a non-Coalition party. In essence we were informed that democracy has not returned to the media house and that the public airwaves have not experienced any kind of change. All our prodding and appeals for a democratic approach to the matter fell on deaf ears. Then we traveled to Linden to see if they would allow us on the government TV station there. Again, they at first told us we can. So we paid
Donald Ramotar has found his memory on Red House lease
DEAR EDITOR, I would like commend former President Donald Ramotar on the sudden recovery of his memory with regard to necessary imprimatur on the Red House ‘lease’. I suppose we can be forgiven for thinking that no such imprimatur was originally given considering the strenuous protestation of his then AttorneyGeneral, now Cheddi Jagan Research Centre Inc’s legal representative in this case, that none was necessary. Ramotar himself curiously declined to offer this critical bit of information in his own letter on the issue a month ago. Of course, there are outstanding issues such as documents in support of said imprimatur, and the conflict of interest situation of Ramotar as President giving his supposed approval of a lease to a company of which he was not only management but a lease he had originally attempted to file in a management capacity for the entity to which the ‘lease’ was issued. All that is of course academic - Red House as of April 2001 became property of the National Trust via gazetting under the provisions of the National Trust Act. Ramotar as Presi-
dent therefore would have signed a lease invalidly issued with the Lands and Surveys Commission as lessor. It seems - generously presuming that recently remembered imprimatur was actually given - that Mr. Ramotar would have been misled by his Minister of Culture, Dr. Frank Anthony; Chairman of the National Trust and fellow CJRC Inc. principal Dr. James Rose; and then Commissioner of Lands and Survey, and statutory National Trust member, Mr. Doorga Persaud. In brief, Mr. Ramotar would have put his signature (actual or implicit) to permission for a lease document that his venerable Attorney General Anil Nandlall has explicitly claimed as not needing said signature, issued under an inapplicable section of the law. Were the implications not so dire, this would be the height of comic absurdity. I look forward to a swift reconciliation of this issue in the interest of the people of Guyana and the protection of their common heritage from illicit appropriation, however risible and clumsy the attempt. Ruel Johnson Cultural Policy Advisor Government of Guyana
Parking Meters generate revenue...
From page 4 accountability and good governance. Furthermore, in an established democracy, we do not obstruct the decision of the majority, because we lost a vote. We embrace and implement it as a decision of the body. Education is power. When citizens become knowl-
edgeable that they will be ultimate beneficiaries of this new policy, the manufactured opposition will become irrelevant, new citizen - city partnerships will emerge and the policy will be successful. I am also mindful that a less vocal majority supports paid parking, and that some dissenters do not even drive, much less park. As an act of transparency, the city should open a dialogue with its residents to solicit their support and feedback on a reasonable fee for parking. This effort cannot be an act in futility. It
should be done in concert with the investors who made the capital investment in this project. The outcome must be a settled fee based on consensus or a majority opinion. This is how you empower citizens to help manage their government. The citizenry must be mobilized to embrace a vision for a modern Georgetown. This is the real challenge of the City council.. Rickford Burke President, Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)
the $10,000 for the half-hour program (we have the receipt to prove it). We were given a day (Tuesdays) and a time (19:00 hours). Then the news reached the senior management of NCN in Georgetown and again the suppressive, PPP/C-type mentality, again surfaced. They are also refusing to broadcast our program in Linden. They even have the unconscionable and unethical presumption to ask us to send someone to collect our payment. Editor, the URP is very disappointed in these latest moves by the NCN management and directors, and by extension, this APNC-AFC government. While we expected the same kind of petty, political, backwardness from the PNC, we were actually hoping that the Granger administration was more magnanimous and ethical than this. We are also appalled that this administration which swept into power with such political goodwill and objectivity, would now stoop so low to practice the same failed policies of the PPP era. The PPP/C failed to call
local government elections, they failed to make certain persons substantive in their positions, they refused to meet with the unions and engage them in collective bargaining, they plundered the coffers of the treasury, they victimized and abused the citizens and sought to stifle their voice. Now this administration has come into power and at first they looked so promising. But after only such a short while, they have been found guilty of many of the same sins of the failed PPP/C. The Public Service Union and the Teacher Service Union are embroiled in a struggle over their promised pay increases. The parking meters are a national fiasco. The taxi drivers, teachers and average workers, are completely opposed to the exorbitant cost they have to now pay for merely doing their jobs. VAT has now been added to light and water, which will send up the cost of products and services, thereby affecting the poor man. Now the public media houses are again held selfishly hostage
by this autocratic govern ment. The citizens of Guyana are at a loss as to what ben efits they have derived by voting for the Coalition Editor, we thought abou writing to Prime Ministe Nagamootoo or Presiden Granger, however, if the PSU and the TSU with all thei hundreds of members canno make the Coalition do right we are sure that right is not a priority for them now. This has led the URP to commit to remaining in the political arena to fight for the average Guyanese. This time we are going all out to make sure that we secure some seats in Parliament. The Guyanese citizens have to pu a stop to this crazy winner take-all madness that obtain in Guyanese politics. The URP is convinced that next time around Guyanese will be sufficiently dissatisfied with the PPP/C and the APNU-AFC and they will give a third party a chance. We are praying tha commonsense and patriotism will trump race and party loy alty in 2020 Dr. Vishnu Bandhu
Guyana is now in the “taxication zone.” From page 5 place, and the state had to bargain with them to get its cut, it seems likely that would change the game entirely.” We do not want to get what academics call the ‘resource curse’. 1. I propose that we the people get a portion of the royalties. “The people may get lazy,” you say. Is that worse than the government using all the money to selectively bless others with laziness? 2. “Well people may waste the money,” you say again. This government seems to have the monopoly on being wasteful. People spend according to their priorities but the APNU+AFC government spends money on what is politically expedient. We should be asking if people are more wasteful than this government. I have concluded that for every year of failure by the APNU+AFC government, it puts our nation three years behind. Just driving down the
streets of the capital city, and seeing the ghostly sights of no vehicles, no shoppers, brings about despair to many in the business community. This government has not been able to determine a sensible balance between expenditures and tax rates and the effect on our economy in getting it wrong. The fiscal policy of taxing the people to manage our economy becomes a problem, post- oil 2020. How will they manage new monies? One of the key factors in the management of our economy is growth; it really matters in the long run. Our economy is on the decline, there is no growth and consequently without that we have fallen into depression. Once again, if one visits any business and asks the question, ‘How are you doing?’ The answer is slow, bad and worrisome. Long term growth has ceased. We are now in the ‘Taxication Zone’. I doubt whether the Minister of Home Affairs would put a curfew on
that too. If the AFC had brought any value to the equa tion, we may have seen a bet ter economic strategy. The 200 plus new taxes have taken our economy down. The fac is that we are no better of solving our energy problem with this government halting the hydro project; we will no be producing more good from existing production. In stead we have to start cutting back. What has been affect ing are our living standards. The present governmen seems intent on continuing to follow the path which i slowly but determinedly lead ing us to at best economic stagnation and at worst to the destruction of a healthy economy which they inher ited from the PPP/C. Their ac tions to date leave us with no confidence in their ability to wisely manage the potentia bonanza which is expected to flow from oil revenues. It i incumbent on all of us to shape our future by being in volved. Peter R Ramsaroop