Dear Editor,
Anyone who read, listened to or watched Dr Roger Forbes Luncheon’s latest reply to the question of the China TV deal must have been dismayed at what he said. Dr Luncheon said: “I don’t think you’re understanding what you’re asking me. The government applying to itself for a frequency? But obviously if they’re instructed what do you think they would do? If you were the Managing Director of NFMU [National Frequency Management Unit] and the HPS [Head of the Presidential Secretariat] called you and said we’ve just agreed with the People’s Republic of China to broadcast the signals and to do so, they have selected a channel to do so, could you please go ahead and assign a channel, you think he’s going to tell me that you got to apply and all of those things? I doubt it.”
A friend once told me this about a certain leader, “there’s one thing you could say about him… whatever he did illegal, he did it legally.” The Guyana Govern-ment is showing its hand in this arrangement with China Central TV/The People’s Republic of China. It appears to be saying that the Government of Guyana has a legitimate right to be wrong. Even if twelve countries have had a deal with China, and Guyana wants to have a deal with China, the Guyanese arrangement must be done in a transparent manner because the electromagnetic spectrum is a limited public resource.
The fact that the National Frequency Management Unit sees itself as a revenue collection agency and not as an administrator, except when the Head of the Presidential Secretariat calls, is shocking. The NFMU has ignored ‘other calls’ to state what is on the spectrum and what is available.
We should be vigilant when our elected representatives sign agreements, make treaties and accede to conventions. We, the people, must not wake up one day to learn that our airwaves, airspace, waterways, terrestrial and subterranean spaces have been signed over to a foreign power.
The electromagnetic spectrum is the last economic frontier, so to speak, and all of us need to be engaged on this one. Unfortunately the airwaves appear to be such an intangible that we miss their significance. ICT and all that we are doing right now would be difficult without the proper regulation and operation of this limited resource (notwithstanding the digital compression of frequencies).
Finally, please could we use the other resource − the airspace − to fly back in Fairness, Accountability, Integrity Transparency, and Honesty (FAITH)?
Yours faithfully,
Enrico Woolford
EMW Communications/
Capitol News