Dear Editor,
The current Guyana Press Association (GPA) has grossly missed its mandate by seeking to lecture the President and his government on privilege treatment of media houses at press engagements or conferences. I think that any mandate that it had expired 36 months ago because the present President and Executive were elected to office in January 2018 and elections should have been held in 2020. President of GPA Nazima Raghubir is not being and transparent when she says that COVID was the cause for there not being an election along with the lack of accountability and transparency in the Organisation. Raghubir knows too well that elections could have been called using meeting forum Zoom, or inline with the restricted meeting guidelines if not in 2020 then 2021 and 2022. The first quarter of 2023 is also over.
She could have held the elections in January 2022 when all the restrictions and curfews were lifted on public meetings and engagements. Raghubir continues to fiddle her thumbs while taking cover under the leadership of the Executive body of the GPA that is complicit in all of this because their mandate expired in January 2020. Were it not for the letters appearing in the press, Raghubir would have used the silence of the press and senior executives, I believe, to grab on to post for as long as she could have gotten away with it. There continues to be questions surrounding which media house Raghubir’s is attached to that would qualify her post in the GPA. I am told that Prime News no longer operates on a daily news broadcast.
Now, for the substantive issue at hand. I believe the press and media are supposed to be ready at a moment’s notice to cover the President’s press conferences and media engagements. There is no special or desired time that a media operative can be called but the practice has been to give enough time. Two and a half hours is enough time! It takes less than forty-five (45) minutes to get to Vreed-en-Hoop and even less time to reach Leonora. I would admit that I am one of the persons that went to the President’s outreach at Leonora. Ragubir is being overly dramatic, sensational, and misleading when she talks about the perceived intimidation, perceived attack and atmosphere that took place when the President hosted his press conference.
Every media representative there had the opportunity to ask questions. I disagree that the president was hostile or dismissive of questions whether they were based on the Oil and Gas Sectors or the outreach. I got the chance to witness how the media quizzed the President and what metal they are made of. The President’s press conference and the atmosphere cannot be compared to the former president David Granger’s press engagements. It is insulting to the public’s mind to do so because the records and facts are there.
It behooves and baffles me, to see how this matter which can be easily verified, but was not, warrants a reply from the press association. The Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for public information is certainly correct in rebuking both the GPA and Kaieteur News. Raghubir should spend more time on hosting the GPA elections in May and answering the questions from the media which will come in droves about her presidency. Using the president’s outreach to score campaign points ahead of the GPA elections is weak and the public sees right through this orchestrated buffoonery.
Sincerely,
Brian Azore
