Veteran broadcaster, Enrico Woolford says that expertise is lacking in the recently appointed governing board of the Guyana National Broad-casting Authority (GNBA) and he has renewed his call for the process of frequency allocation to be made transparent.
“The board from my point of view would come up wanting in terms of expertise to look at broadcasting and transmission matters,” he told Stabroek News in an invited comment yesterday while adding that more thought should have been put in their selection.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon on Wednesday announced that the government has approved the appointment of the governing board of the GNBA. The body will be headed by former Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Bibi Shadick and the other members are Margo Boyce, Gerry Gouveia, Norman McLean, Dr. Dindial Permaul, Charles Ramson Jr and Sherwood Lowe who was nominated by the Leader of the Opposition.
Apart from Lowe and McLean who previously served on broadcast committees, Woolford, with reference to the composition of the Board, said that because of the members’ affiliation or perceived sympathies, it does not reflect a cross-section of Guyanese opinion and expertise and experience. He said that those with experience are perceived to be on the wrong side of the political spectrum.
It would have been much more transparent if names were put out publicly and it is seen whether the persons have interest in broadcasting or experience in it, the broadcaster added, while suggesting that the National Assembly should have had a hand in the selection of persons. He said that when there is a former government minister as chairperson of the board, “we appear to be heading down the road of total control by the government rather than an independent, autonomous body.” He said that “one has no idea how these people were selected.”
“I think the whole process needs to be transparent,” he stressed.
The Broadcast Authority will be responsible among other things for establishing classes of licences, the issuing of licences for terms not exceeding ten years and for the suspension and revocation of licences.
Woolford yesterday renewed his call for the operations of the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) to be more transparent. According to him, a lot of frequencies are available and ought to be made available but he is not sure that the NFMU has managed the frequencies for the benefit of the country.
More transparent
The broadcaster emphasized that the entity should be able to say who were issued with what. “We should be able to say when the frequencies were allocated and to who and by what process they were allocated,” he said while pointing to, among other things, the operation of cable operators. “One needs to be very, very public about how these processes are done. It needs to be much more transparent and much more open,” Woolford stressed.
“Very few members of the public know…who actually own what,” he added. He said that the NFMU needs to manage the frequencies and tell the public who has what, where and which community they are serving. He said that they should also say which frequencies are available in communities like Lethem and so on.
In addition, the broadcaster said, there are operations that use up valuable frequency space for repeater stations to transmit content but the NFMU could have allocated microwaves and relay stations that will not impinge on the limited VHF and UHF frequencies.
He pointed out that in the past the frequencies were considered a limited resource but at the time there was no digital compression of frequency as there is now and so a lot of frequencies will now be freed.
He added that the NFMU had allocated VHF channels for relay purposes that later became regular television stations and persons have also been “squatting” on some frequencies.
Radio licences
Meantime, in relation to the issue of radio licences, he said that this remains a concern. He recalled that EMW Communications had applied for a radio and television licence and was allocated Channel 34. He said that before former President Bharrat Jagdeo demitted office, he had written to him regarding this. All he received was an acknowledgement of the letter, he said.
Government controversially approved radio licences for 11 entities last year, including Television Guyana (TVG) Channel 28, Hits and Jams Entertainment and the National Television Network (NTN).
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds made the disclosure in March this year in a written response to a question from AFC MP Khemraj Ramjattan.
Approval of requests for licences was also given to the Matthews Ridge Community Council, Little Rock Television Station, Afro Alphonso and Sons Enterprise, New Guyana Company Limited (NGCL), Wireless Connections, Rudy Grant, Telecor and Cultural Broadcasting Inc and Linden Wireless Communication Network.
Several other applications which had been before the NFMU were not considered and critics said that awards were made mostly to applicants that the government was comfortable with. Observers say it is expected that this process will begin afresh now that the broadcasting is being finally established.
“The process itself has to be looked at again,” Woolford said.
He said that there are several questions to be answered including how the process was done, whether the NFMU was involved and who advised the government. “It just seems unfortunate, we seem to be going from one struggle to another,” he said.
