– Luncheon
THE Office of the President (OP) declared yesterday that there is no basis for the negative reactions and allegations being made over the decision to sanction CNS (Chandra Narine Sharma) television Channel Six and what is frequently being overlooked is the fact that the infringement is indisputable.
Speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing, at the Office of the President (OP), Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon said the infringement was acknowledged by the licensees and supported by the public announcement of their fault.
The actual duration of the suspension was proposed by the licensees and accepted by President Bharrat Jagdeo during their second of two meetings with him at OP.
Luncheon charged that Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Robert Corbin has a few things himself to disclose about his role in attempting to frustrate the functions of the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB), a statutory body created subsequent to agreements between President Jagdeo and then Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Desmond Hoyte.
Since Mr. Hoyte’s death, Luncheon observed that Corbin has sought to have Jagdeo “unceremoniously, improperly and without cause,” remove sitting members of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), and the ACB, those members who were nominated by the previous Opposition Leader, Luncheon said.
He went on: “Different explanations and excuses were offered by Mr. Corbin but nothing of substance. Nothing suggesting cause. Properly, the President rejected Corbin’s advances.”
Luncheon said the litigation that surrounded the ACB at the time of their consideration of the complaint into the airing of the commentary by Channel Six was to question the constitutionality of the ACB.
“His (Corbin’s) main intention is to render the ACB non-functional either by a court ruling which he was denied or by not filling a vacancy he was seeking to create in having the President remove Mr. Hoyte’s nominee. In both instances he failed,” said the  HPS.
According to him, Corbin later succeeded when Mr. Hoyte’s nominee resigned and hence must be in a position to explain why he has refused to reappoint a replacement despite requests to do so. “Obviously, he intended the ACB, since the beginning of his request in 2003, to become and remain non-functional.”
The President, initially, entertained the recommendation from the ACB that called for a much longer period of suspension and the second meeting allowed the licensees to make a recommendation. In this context, the four months requested was granted, the HPS pointed out.
Luncheon argued that the ban on Channel Six cannot, at this stage, be lifted. “That has, essentially, closed the door and the proposal by her (Sharma’s wife) was accepted and was reflective of their own assessment of what fault they had to bear and what they actually caused and what sanctions were appropriate.”
Asked by a reporter, about calls by the Opposition to boycott the elections in view of the sanctioning, Luncheon responded: “This one is a most novel of reasons, something that initially, merely, contrived and leads me to wonder whether they are, indeed, other reasons, problems they are encountering, that they may very well try to hide behind actually a call, or worse yet, their actual commitment to boycott.”