Broadcaster Anthony Vieira, whose former company Vieira Communications Television (VCT) was legally entitled to compensation from government after its failure to grant him a radio licence, is now seeking payment that could amount to over $1 billion from Dr Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop, saying he prevented him from pursuing the money after buying his operations.
Vieira sold VCT’s operations to Ramroop’s Queens Atlantic Investment Inc (QA11) in June, 2009, just months before the Court of Appeal ruled that VCT was entitled to compensation for damages for violations of its rights and granted the company leave to approach the High Court for an assessment of such damages. The court also ordered the government and the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) to pay VCT costs in the sum of $250,000 each.
In a statement issued yesterday, QA11 said the government officially paid $500,000 to Television Guyana Inc (TVG), as successor to VCT, for damages as a result of the lawsuit. The payment, it noted, was made in March after a Court of Appeal Order was issued to the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
“The cheque was paid…originally to TVG, which had purchased all of the properties and assets of VCT,” it noted, while explaining that a decision was taken by Ramroop to pay the monies to Vieira, “as the company’s final obligations and commitment to him following the sale of VCT and all related properties.”
While the statement said that Vieira was paid $500,000 as “damages” and that the cheque was cashed by him, Vieira contends that the money represents the court costs from both the government and the NFMU and this cannot be equated to damages as awarded by the court. Vieira said that the compensation he is entitled to is in the neighbourhood of between $600 million and $1.2 billion.
“The $500,000 Ramroop has now paid in haste is an effort to subvert the course of justice [as] we are currently in court on the matter since he denied me the right to approach the Supreme Court to quantify the amount to be paid to me for compensation for the violation of my fundamental rights as directed by the Appeal Court of Guyana,” he said.
“He wickedly and wrongly now says that he has paid me what the appeal court awarded me i.e. costs from the NFMU and the government totalling $500,000. My lawyers and I consider it a gross violation of the agreement I had with Dr Ramroop that all compensation would come to me, and I am shocked that having paid me the $500,000, which was only part of the award of the Appeal Court, he can now make this distorted claim that he has paid me in full,” Vieira said.
He further said that the fact that it took Ramroop nearly four years to send him the cheque for the costs and that the cheque was from Ramroop himself and not the NFMU and the Attorney General suggests that he is liable to pay the compensation. “By acknowledging that he is responsible to pay the costs, then he has also acknowledged that he must also pay the compensation for the constitutional violations perpetrated on my by the PPP government since 1993,” Vieira said.
He said that Ramroop’s refusal to take the matter to the Supreme Court “as directed by the Appeal Court was a gross violation of the agreement of sale and purchase between him and me and is the subject of a civil case whereby I am asking the court to force Ramroop to pay me the compensation he refused to approach the supreme court for on my behalf.”
‘Not a favour’
Meanwhile, Ramroop has faced accusations that he and others close to former president Bharrat Jagdeo, were issued radio licences as a result of preferential treatment. Ramroop’s company yesterday sought to challenge the claim by pointing out that the award of the licence was as a result of the court ruling in Vieira’s favour.
“When I sold it to him the case was still pending and the understanding was that if I won I would get the damages awarded and Ramroop would get the licence,” Vieira told Stabroek News yesterday. He noted that at the time of the sale, there had been an agreement in place which had been struck between then leader of the opposition Desmond Hoyte and Jagdeo to hold on the granting of any radio or television licence until the coming into being of the Broadcast Authority.
But in its statement yesterday, QA11 said by the time VCT’s radio licence had been approved, Vieira had already sold the operations to QA11 and as a result the licence was issued in the name of Radio Guyana International.
“As successor to all rights of VCT, TVG received the radio licence consequent to the judgement,” said the QA11 statement, adding that in 2011 Jagdeo broke government’s monopoly on the radio waves, granting some ten licences to applicants who were awaiting approval.
“Among them was VCT’s application, which was one of the first in the system, but at the time approval was granted, Vieira had already sold his company and all rights to Dr Ramroop. The granting of the licence, therefore, came as a result of legal proceedings against the government, which was instituted by VCT, and not as a result of any favour of the former president or his Cabinet at the time,” the company added.
The controversial awards, which have been condemned since the licensees were identified in the National Assembly recently, have been widely condemned and their legality recently challenged by lawsuits, filed by veteran broadcaster Enrico Woolford, media proprietor Glenn Lall and the Guyana Media Proprietors Association.
