-legal background key qualification
President Donald Ramotar yesterday defended the appointees to the governing board of the National Broadcasting Authority as the best candidates, while disclosing that a legal background was the main criteria used to make the selection.
“You needed people with legal knowledge, a legal background. You needed people with some experience on these issues so it was on that basis [that I appointed them]. These are people who I think would be competent people,” Ramotar said during a press conference in response to a query as to what the criteria for choosing the members of the Authority were.
Government announced earlier this month that the board of the authority, to be headed by former Minister of Human Services Bibi Shadick, also includes Margo Boyce, Gerry Gouveia, Norman McLean, Dr. Dindial Permaul, Charles Ramson Jr as well as Sherwood Lowe, who was nominated by the Leader of the Opposition David Granger.
Ramotar said that a group of “competent people” are on the board and he noted that Lowe brings some experience as “he did a lot of work on this in a previous time.”
“I mean I can’t always choose people who you like. I have to also choose who I think can do the work,” he said.
Asked about suggestions that broadcast experience should be a prerequisite for selection, Ramotar stated that it was not the only qualification needed to be appointed to the board.
“Broadcasting is a totally different kind of discipline. I think you need legal experience, you need ideas of what kind of society that you need in a democratic democracy… The broadcasting experience is for the stations I think,” he said.
Observers have said that the government might have to initially justify the choice of its appointees as several of them have not been involved in broadcast matters. Lowe had been a member of the previous committee on broadcasting that had been agreed between former President Bharrat Jagdeo and late PNCR Leader Desmond Hoyte.
The initial location for the board would be at the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) on Hadfield Street but there are plans on the drawing board to establish an office that minimally would house the Broadcasting Authority and provide office space for the governing board of the Broadcast Authority, according to Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon.
He had said that the opportunity would be used to build to accommodate expanded services to be offered by the successor to the NFMU but that would be a matter subsequent to legislation that is before parliament right now. He was referring to the Telecommunications (Amendment) Bill.
The Broadcast Bill was passed in June 2011 and enacted without the support of the PNCR, the main opposition party at the time.
It provided for the establishment of the National Broadcasting Authority with a Governing Board, which is to comprise not less than four and not more than seven persons, one of whom shall be its Chairperson. The Authority is to 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.
