-SN reporter locked out
Only a few persons turned up to a meeting called by the Non-traditional Agriculture Exporters Association yesterday.
In an advertisement, the Association had invited its members and potential exporters to a meeting yesterday at 1 pm at the New Guyana Marketing Corpora-tion Packing Facility, Sophia. The issue of exports is under the spotlight as many farmers across the country have complained in Stabroek News reports that despite exhortations by the Ministry of Agriculture to produce more, farmers have limited markets and crops go to waste. Years after the ministry started its ‘Grow More Food’ campaign, many farmers say that markets remain a major concern to them.
Meantime, hours before the meeting, the Secretary of the NAEA, who identified himself as Mr. Amsterdam called Stabroek News and said that the meeting was put off and a reporter need not be sent. However, a Stabroek News reporter went to the Pack House at the scheduled meeting time anyway and found that there was a meeting. An official there said that the media was not allowed inside and further said that only those with invitations would be allowed inside.
Amsterdam said that the “authorities” had instructed that the media not be allowed inside. When asked why he had misinformed when he called Stabroek News to say that the meeting was put off, he restated that the “authorities” had instructed that no media be allowed inside. He also spoke about “principles” and when it was pointed out that he had lied about the meeting being put off, he eventually conceded that “we all lie sometimes” while New GMC officials called the reporter an “upstart”.
The Stabroek News reporter waited outside the Pack House compound to speak with attendees when the meeting was completed. However, when the meeting was well underway, an employee of the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce along with a security guard appeared and said that they had received a call from the Pack House that someone, referring to the reporter outside, was “stalking somebody inside the meeting”. The employee, Joel, said that the administrator of the Sophia Exhibition Centre had asked that the reporter leave.
When the administrator’s office was contacted, the woman who answered said that they had received a call informing that a meeting was in progress at the Pack House and the media was there and they did not want the media there.
