Major General (ret’d) Joe Singh will investigate the allegations of misconduct made by broadcaster Kenwin Charles against members of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) Board, the Ministry of the Presidency yesterday announced.
He was given the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the inquiry yesterday by Minister of State Joseph Harmon and is expected to submit his report to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo at the end of this month.
The move by the Prime Minister for an independent investigation came last month, shortly after Chairman of the GNBA Leonard Craig announced that the board would be investigating Charles’ allegations against Board members Victor Insanally and Anthony Vieira.
Craig, in a statement, had said Charles, of Northwest TV Inc, an unlicenced operation, asked to meet with him to highlight several concerns. “At that meeting he made a complaint essentially accusing Mr Anthony Vieira and Mr Victor Insanally of trying to improperly force him out of doing business on the Essequibo Coast where he had made significant capital investments,” Craig had said.
He added that Charles also indicated that he had met with the Prime Minister and a similar complaint was lodged. “I gave him every assurance that his matter will be given urgent consideration and that I will address this matter with the Board as soon as he makes a formal written complaint,” he added.
However, Insanally and Vieira subsequently sent Craig a lawyer’s letter, warning him to desist from repeating “false” allegations made by Charles, while adding that they will be seeking damages for his publicising them. They also called on him to apologise.
Charles was also sent a lawyer’s letter by the Board members’ attorney CV Satram, calling on him to retract his statements and issue an apology to the duo or face civil proceedings for damages.
“We call upon you to retract the said statements and to publicly apologise to our clients. If you fail to do so within seven (7) days of the date of this letter, we have been instructed to institute legal proceedings against you to recover damages for the injury suffered to our clients’ good character,” the letter stated.
The seven-day deadline expired last Monday.
The investigator into the allegations has said that he will work along closely with the Legal Advisor from the Ministry of the Presidency, Geeta Chandan Edmond, to ensure emphasis is placed on the gathering of detailed information.
“[We are going] to work closely with the Legal Advisor… to map out a timetable and a sequence of events, identify those persons, who are pertinent in terms of receiving information from them; whether written or oral… and during that process asking the relevant questions to ensure that we can come up with the determination based on what the report is designed to do,” Major General Singh said, according to the release.
Saying they have been embarrassed and traumatised because of “false corruption allegations” made against them by an illegal operator, both Insanally and Vieira had told this newspaper that they welcomed the independent probe.
