Dear Editor,
On December 20, 2012 you published a letter from me captioned ‘The government has not honoured its agreement on the Linden TV station,’ and the next day you published an article quoting aspects of my letter. Sadly the situation has not improved.
To recap what I said in that letter for the benefit of those readers who don’t remember it, I informed the public that pursuant to the covenant signed between the government on the one hand and the APNU and the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of Region 10 on the other on August 21, 2012, the agreement stated clearly: “that the dish and the transmitter that were given to the Linden community will be given to the region 10 Regional Democratic Council; that the dish and the transmitter should be transferred to the region within 14 days of the signing of this agreement; that it was agreed that Region 10 will apply for a broadcast licence and the government will facilitate the granting of that licence in keeping with the law.”
Before we go further we have to wade through the deception and bad faith which the government has displayed to date with this agreement, which was literally bought with the blood of the Lindeners.
The transmitter which was supposed to be given back to the people of Linden, was an undertaking made by the Government of Guyana in a written agreement between them and the opposition. No transmitter was ever given. In addition there is no instrument anywhere officially handing over the dish and the site on Richmond Hill to the RDC; they were forced to take possession of the site to rebuild the building which had completely collapsed since there was a fire there years ago. I know, since I bought most of the material needed to rebuild it, including all the electrical necessities and air conditioning.
The transmitter which the people of Linden asked the government to operate for them since they could not operate it themselves several years ago was VHF Channel 13, and therefore if the government intended to keep its agreement with the people of Linden, they should have handed back this Channel VHF 13 transmitter to the RDC of Linden 14 days after the signing of the agreement on August 21, 2012.
To this day, March 20, 2014 exactly 20 months later, the government has not only never handed back this channel VHF 13 transmitter to the RDC, but they continue to operate it in Linden, which would mean that they would have had to register this frequency with what they call a Broadcast Authority, and get a new licence to operate it.
Editor, throughout the world people expect that their governments would act in a manner consistent with the international norms of honour and good faith. These high concepts are enshrined in the oath public officials are required to take before assuming office in this country.
How is it, therefore, that we have a government in this country which when it gives undertakings does not have the common decency to keep them? That lies, deception and shenanigans are the order of the day; that commitments, promises, etc, are made by them to defuse certain situations and thereafter it is their practice to frustrate and to act in bad faith not to keep those agreements? In this case in your report on this matter published on December 21, 2012, you correctly quoted me as saying, “that by agreeing to facilitate the Lindeners to get this TV station the opposition were deceived into accepting an unconstitutional Broadcast Authority which can never be impartial, independent or autonomous, and which would have never surfaced if the Linden issue had not arisen.” Since then, all of the illegally licensed radio stations have been broadcasting except the Linden TV Station, for which the authority was formed. Editor, how much is enough?
We saw this bad faith in the dialogue which brought an end to the marching and protests by Desmond Hoyte who made the government unworkable; we saw it in the communiqué and we saw it in other promises and agreements too numerous to include here. In fact, it would take your entire newspaper to publish the broken agreements and promises the PPP have made since Cheddi Jagan died.
In my letter I told the public that the RDC was instructed first to apply to the NFMU and they did; I know this since I paid $70,000 for the application to be done. The RDC was then told after much pushing around and nearly a year, to apply to the newly formed Broadcast Authority again; I know this since I paid to have the application filled up. At the request of the authority the RDC formed a trust to operate the station, since only companies or organisations can now broadcast.
Sharma Solomon now tells us that he gave the application to Dr Luncheon last year September because it was he who was facilitating the agreements between the government and the Lindeners and they were meeting regularly. The agreement between this government and the Lindeners, in my opinion, transcends all this nonsense of applying to anyone for permission to broadcast. They signed a national agreement which is in my opinion permission to broadcast; they agreed that they would give the people their transmitter within 14 days; and they promised to facilitate the issuance of a licence.
This illegal Broadcast Authority (the opposition has now tabled a bill in parliament to abandon it in favour of a more democratic authority) should have taken Channel 13 off the air in Linden and handed the transmitter to the RDC. If in their incompetence they did not know that it was that frequency which was given to the workers of Linden by the Bauxite Company, then it should be taken off the air immediately and the transmitter handed over. Now months later Ms Bibi Shadik is saying that no application has been seen by her. And Ms Gail Teixeira is saying that the transmitter was given to the RDC. I say that it is not true or I would have seen it, since the RDC came to me in 2012 and asked me to be their sponsor/investor to operate this TV station, and I agreed to help them set it up and run it.
After Mr Solomon rightly denied that the transmitter had been handed over, Ms Teixeira then completely somersaulted and informed the media that the transmitter was the government’s anyway.
But that is not what the signed agreement between the parties said; it said that the transmitter (regardless of who Ms Teixeira thinks owns it) would be returned to the Lindeners and that the RDC would expect that the government’s promise to facilitate (as the agreement stipulated) the granting of the licence would have been done, and not this nonsense of putting every conceivable obstacle in the path of the RDC to obtain the licence, which the PPP considers facilitating the process.
It’s been 20 months of all fools days in this matter, and the government is to blame. Since not only have they not handed the transmitter over to the RDC, it seems to me that they have no intention of returning it, since they continue to broadcast with it in Linden, to do exactly what the Lindeners do not want, ie, to be bombarded with PPP propaganda daily.
The people of Linden are getting angry again, and the PPP apparently wants that.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
