The Government Information Agency (GINA) yesterday evening condemned the opposition APNU and AFC for what it termed a “wanton attack” on its staff, after they voted to reduce its 2012 budget to $1.
GINA, in a statement, expressed profound shock and disappointment at what it said was “the selfish and callous actions” perpetrated in the National Assembly by APNU in collaboration with the AFC in reducing its 2012 budgetary allocation on Wednesday.
It also called for the Guyana Press Association (GPA) and other civil society organisations to denounce the move by the opposition. In justifying cutting GINA’s budget and the subsidy for the state-run NCN TV and Radio, APNU MP Carl Greenidge told the National Assembly that while both agencies have a national responsibility to serve the country as a whole, they refuse to deliver professional services and balanced news reporting. “So the lack of professionalism and failure to adhere to internationally accepted standards of reporting do not merit taxpayers’ money being used to subsidise them,” he said.
But according to GINA, the opposition parties have misused their one-seat majority in the National Assembly to “exploit partisanship” as demonstrated in their actions. “The management and staff of GINA “forthrightly condemn the APNU/AFC’s irresponsible actions which have dire consequences pertaining to the existence of the Agency, and by extension, the livelihood of its thirty-eight (38) staff members and their families,” the statement said.
GINA noted that its hard-working staffers have family-related responsibilities and obligations to financial institutions and that some of them are the sole breadwinners. GINA further contended that the imminent threat to their jobs is traumatising and would leave them and their families vulnerable to the possible harsh consequences of not being able meet their financial commitments.
GINA declared that it “can only interpret the actions of APNU and AFC to reduce its subvention to one Guyana dollar ($1.00) as a disdainful, deliberate ploy to deprive staff of their jobs.”
In addition, GINA charged that the actions must be seen as a “blatant attempt to deny the populace, and those overseas who access the services of GINA, of their right to be informed as it relates to government programmes and policies.”
According to GINA, if this attempt to suppress its operations is successful, then the nation will be only subjected to information that is biased towards APNU and AFC through the media entities they influence. And such a situation is not in keeping with government’s obligation to provide information to the citizenry, GINA added.
Therefore, in this context GINA said it would remind APNU and AFC alliance that all governments have a unit that functions as their information arm, and so the operational mandate of GINA is not unique to Guyana and the present administration.
Moreover, GINA said it cannot help concluding that, in addition to other factors, the actions of APNU and AFC have demonstrated their deficiency in understanding its role.
GINA also reiterated that the “professional staff exercised their constitutional right to choose where they work in this now free and democratic nation.”
In that light, GINA considered it insensitive that APNU and AFC would attempt to malign them as hacks and cronies of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic and to deprive them of their jobs and asserted that this “must be seen as a brazen attack on media operatives.”
In this regard, GINA said it was appalled that the GPA, which is usually swift to speak out against alleged discrimination on the private media and its operatives, has been silent on the actions of APNU and AFC.
GINA also called on the Ministry of Labour, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), civil society and other relevant local and international organisations to denounce what it said was a “vengeful act” by APNU and AFC.
Management and staff of GINA, however, remain steadfast and united in its actions to condemn and bring awareness to the current situation, the statement concluded.
