GNBA against political parties holding Broadcast Licence

By Abena-Rockcliffe-Campbell  
The Board of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) is not in favour of political parties holding Broadcasting Licences. Therefore, it is unlikely that the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C)

GNBA Board of Directors, From Left: Vic Insanally, Anthony Vieira, Jocelyn Josiah, Leonard Craig (Chairman), Abiola Wong-Inniss and Ameena Gafoor

will be in the Radio Broadcasting business much longer.
The GNBA made its stance known at a recent press conference held at its Kingston office.
At that forum, the Board said that it is looking for a foolproof way of going about revoking the radio licences granted by former President Bharrat Jagdeo days before he demitted office.
The Board said that after it would have successfully revoked the licences, all potential broadcasters will be made to reapply. The applications will be reevaluated and licences will be redistributed based on merit.
However, other pronouncements made by the Board have led to the conclusion that the PPP would definitely not be able to recover its licence.
Director, Anthony Vieira said, “We are against political parties having Broadcast Licence.” He explained the Board’s position is that it would be unsustainable to do so.
“If you are going to have PPP operating from Freedom House then APNU (A Partnership for National Unity), AFC (Alliance For Change) and WPA (Working People’s Alliance) ask for a similar facility you cannot deny them. On that basis alone we cannot allow this to stand because there would not be space to put all these other people.”
The Director said that denying other parties can lead to court action. “You simply cannot do that because other parties (that are not given the same privilege) can easily carry you to court for violating their right to freedom of speech.”
Vieira also reminded that the Radio Spectrum is a “limited national resource so we cannot hand it to political parties”.
The former broadcaster said that he is not aware of any other country in the world where political parties are given radio frequencies. Director Vic Insanally also weighed in on the matter.
He told the media that he is against political parties being given Broadcast Licences because of the potential threat of certain messages being sent out to society.
Insanally said, “We will also have to do 24-hour monitoring of these stations because almost every minute—from what I have been listening to—you are finding something that can cause a problem.
Freedom Radio is owned by People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPPC). It is the only political party that has a Broadcasting Licence. Freedom Radio operates out of PPP headquarters located on Robb Street, Georgetown.
Jagdeo basically granted radio licences to his friends, family and Party.
The GNBA’s Chairman said that the Authority currently has 44 pending applications for radio, television and cable services. However he did not give a breakdown of how many applications are pending for the respective areas of Broadcast.