NCN demands PPP pay up owed $13.5M – for political advertisements aired
THE People’s Progressive Party (PPP) owes the National Communications Network (NCN) in excess of $13.5M for political advertisements aired and the State owned media entity is demanding the political party pay up.The Chronicle understands the PPP has been called upon to make the payments on more than one occasion but the party is yet to make good. The monies owed to NCN by the PPP, are for political advertisements aired during March and May of this year. Guyana held its General and Regional Elections on May 11, 2015, and the PPP had inundated the State owned television station with campaign advertisements at the time. On May 27 last, NCN’s Marketing Manager, Raymond Azeez, was forced to write to the party’s Executive Secretary, Zulfikar Mustapha, reminding of the outstanding $13.5M owed to NCN by the PPP. At the time, Azeez, the NCN Marketing Manager, directed that the sum owed, be paid as soon as possible. This did not materialise causing Azeez to last week again write to the PPP demanding payments. Azeez, this time in a correspondence seen by the Chronicle yesterday, and addressed to the PPP General Secretary, Clement Rohee, pointed out that the matter had previously been raised with the party’s General Secretary to no avail. NCN as result demanded of Rohee that the PPP make the payments by Friday last. The PPP has since not made any payment. Each of the correspondence to the PPP, were copied to NCN’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Molly Hassan; Finance Controller, Shabana Singh; and Amanda Sookram, the entity’s Customer Service Supervisor. Rohee, in an invited comment, told the Chronicle that while he was not familiar with all of the details, the party is currently still in the process of tabulating its arrears at which point in time the appropriate payments will be made. Word of the demands by NCN of the PPP for monies owed comes just after the announcement that the State owned entity had fired its Berbice Coordinator, Faizal Jafarally, who incidentally is one of the party’s Candidates. This publication understands Jafarally’s dismissal stems from his purported underperformance since being appointed as the NCN Berbice Coordinator a year ago.
(Gary Eleazar)