A US$10M science and technology programme for the University of Guyana is set to get underway but the advertisements for it are only being placed in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle.
Two pages of advertisements for the University of Guyana Science and Tech-nology Support Project (UGSTSP) appeared in the May 19th edition of the state-owned Guyana Chronicle but have not appeared anywhere else. The long-awaited project for the University of Guyana is being funded by the World Bank.
In an invited comment, Stabroek News Editor-in-Chief Anand Persaud said he was surprised that UG and the World Bank would allow themselves to be party to the discriminatory treatment of the media where the placement of ads is concerned. He said that the leading provider of tertiary education in the country should be the last institution to allow itself to be part of discriminatory practices or to conduct its bus
iness in such a manner that it was unaware of this. Similarly, Persaud said it was befuddling that the World Bank’s governance standards would allow discrimination in the way advertising for its projects was handled. Persaud said that not only was the current arrangement discriminatory but it was also poor business practice. He said that the State paper had a low circulation and if the World Bank and UG we
re interested in broad publicity and impact for their advertisements they would be looking elsewhere. Persaud said that it appears that the advertisements are being handled through the Government Information Agency which should not be the case as the university is executing the contract.
Persaud added that the Government of Guyana was continuing to discriminate against the private media in the allocation of state advertising and had not changed this policy despite wide condemnation over the last six years. The Editor-in-Chief said that when institutions like UG and funding agencies like the World Bank become parties to such a policy it sends a disturbing signal. He pointed out that the Caribbean Development Bank is another financing institution that has allowed its project advertising to be used in a discriminatory manner and said that the bank should ensure that its governance standards outlaw this.
