| The government side of the National Assembly narrowly defeated a motion tabled by Alliance for Change Vice Chair, Sheila Holder, which sought to have private television station owners relay their signal into the mining town of Linden.A perceived victory was scored, however, as Presidential Advisor and Member of Parliament, Gail Teixeira, announced that the government was now prepared to issue new licenses for television and radio operations.According to Teixeira, what stymied the entire process was the fact that a communiqué signed between President Bharrat Jagdeo and the leader of the Main Opposition Party, People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), ordered a freeze on the issuance of license until a Broadcast legislation could be implemented.Teixeira told the House that the government was prepared to look away from that communiqué and go ahead and issue licenses.Holder, who presented the motion that was defeated by a 31 to 24 vote, said that by refusing to support the motion the government had failed the people of Linden.According to Holder, all the motion was seeking was a simple request to not discriminate against the people of Linden and allow them to have access to different views.Holder warned the legislators that there would be political consequences by pushing people too far and to those that took the comments as a threat, she noted that it was her constitutional right as a member of the House to give warning when necessary.In her tabling of the motion, the AFC vice chair said that the intent of subjecting Lindeners to watching just the National Communications Network (NCN) was to deny a wide cross section of views. She added that it was an act of punishment to peddle political propaganda.“You are tangling with the wrong set of people…Lindeners are strong-willed people.”Leader of the main Opposition Party, Robert Corbin, documented the arrival of the communiqué which,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, according to him, after the issuance of licenses the legislation was supposed to have come into effect four months later. This was to have been effected after the signing of the document in 2003.He noted that a motion asking for more television stations to beam into Linden is a sign of the incompetence of the government.Corbin also accused the government of taking a satellite dish that was presented to the people of Linden and selling it. Subsequently, rather than expanding television in the region it imposed an NCN monopoly.He also pointed to recent court action in Antigua which found that it was a right of a citizen to have access to a variety of views on television or radio, and it was unconstitutional to deny any citizen that right.According to Corbin, Lindeners have already filed court action in an attempt to have private televisions operating in Linden,Cheap Air Max Shoes, and were still waiting for “their day in Court.”He also accused the government of undermining freedom of choice in that region while urging it to honour its commitment (the communiqué) and recognize that the people of Linden will not be fooled and are looking for results. “The people have given government long enough.”Teixeira, who defended the government’s position, called the opposition’s comments incendiary. She questioned the PNCR’s moral authority to pronounce on the issue.According to Teixeira, the people of Linden were already exposed to alternatives and she pointed to the cable operators in the locale as well as to the options such as Direct and Sky TV.She added that even with the NCN option, Lindeners were allowed to have their own programmes apart from the direct feed from Georgetown.The presidential advisor also pointed to the fact that every country is allocated a particular size of the electromagnet spectrum. It has limited frequencies and is a national asset that has to be meticulously managed.She said that a portion of what is allocated is reserved for aviation,NFL Jerseys China Online, maritime and security, among others.She noted that every private operator is allocated a particular bandwidth and can do as much as he or she pleases to ensure the quality of the broadcast.According to Teixeira, if one were to want to beam its signal beyond that then that person would have to apply for a new license to access more bandwidth.As it relates to the delay in the implementation of broadcast legislation, Teixeira noted that it was the PNCR that has not responded to the draft that is in place.As it relates to the Dish that was handed over to the people of Linden,Cheap Jerseys Wholesale, Teixeira pointed that the frequency could not be donated to the people of Linden.She further said that after a fire following the post 2006 ‘fever’, the government rebuilt the infrastructure and had that not been done then Linden would have been without any TV station.Leader of the AFC,Cheap Air Max Tn, Raphael Trotman told the House that by denying the people of Linden alternatives to NCN was in fact “intellectual genocide”. He said that the choice to access alternative views was a right and not a privilege.He also noted that its was heartening to hear that the government was now prepared to commence issuing TV and radio licenses but he would be monitoring who would be the recipients of such licenses.Trotman added that the reference to cable operators and Direct TV was not relevant in that the people of Linden were already hard pressed for cash and the alternatives mentioned were expensive. The views that the Lindeners were hoping to access could not be found on those outlets, he said.PNCR Member of Parliament and Linden representative,Wholesale Jerseys China, Vanessa Kissoon, presented an emotional outcry for the people of Linden to have access to alternatives to NCN. “We are fed up with what we have to watch….We feel restricted, restrained and in prison.”There was also the complaint that the Linden input that Teixeira mentioned was subject to censorship. When the broadcast does not conform to what was ‘acceptable’, it would not see the light of day.As a poignant example,Cheap Jeseys NFL, she noted that the memorial for the Sun Chapman that went down in the Demerara River some years ago was also veted. “Why is the government trying to blot out our history?”However, there was no firm date when the promised liberalisation would occur. |
