FOLLOWING a question by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Member of Parliament (MP), Catherine Hughes, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds emphasized on Thursday in the National Assembly that the National Communications Network (NCN) is not managing anything for the China Central Television (CCTV) station.

Hughes had asked whether NCN is managing CCTV Channel 27/Cable 78 operated by the Chinese Embassy in Guyana and whether NCN is receiving any monetary remuneration or fees for managing the entity.
However, in his written response, Prime Minister Hinds stressed that there is no CCTV station operated by the Chinese Embassy in Guyana and NCN is not managing such an entity, hence, there is no question of fees for doing so.
He explained also that during the course of discussions at the level of the Guyana– China Joint Commission, it was Guyana which held the desire to have CCTV programmes available in the country in an effort to widen the range of foreign programmes that are accessible in Guyana.
He noted that this desire was eventually formalized in an agreement between the Governments of China and Guyana in 2004, under which CCTV provided NCN with receiving and transmitting facilities. According to Hinds, these facilities then became the property of NCN and enabled the network to receive the content of CCTV.
“NCN utilizes Channel 27/Cable 78 which has been assigned to NCN to broadcast content from CCTV,” he clarified.
Hughes had also asked the Prime Minister to detail the procedure followed by NCN to obtain the relevant license for the CCTV operation and what fees were paid to the National Frequency Management Unit for this.
However, Hinds related that there was no need for such a license under the circumstances and therefore there was no application from and no grant of license to CCTV.