Dear Editor,
Tony Vieira’s statement that the issuing of the radio licences must be subject to the Broadcast Authority’s establishment is fair. Therefore the Opposition parties must hold the Government to that agreement. While the Government could argue that it was in a rush to issue the licences before the elections thus scoring political points, that is negated by the 19 years it has taken to establish the Broadcast laws and the predominance of licencees close to the administration.
The Government and Opposition, in the interest of fair play, must agree to the request and then review all applications and further stipulate that after vetting, a licence for an area would ultimately be decided on by a tendering process. In that way the People of Guyana would be best served because they will get the best operators and collect fair revenue for use of the air waves.
That’s a win-win for everyone except those that would not qualify in a fair and open evaluation process. It would be especially unfair to those that were so comfortable that they would be licensed that they have already imported equipment and set to go. No more sacred cows fellas.
Yours faithfully,
S Persaud
