PRIME Minister Moses Nagamootoo on Friday commissioned the state-of-the-art Satellite Earth Station Multimedia Teleport at the National Communications Network Inc. (NCN). This will effectively allow NCN to uplink and broadcast television signals via satellite. This, according to the Department of Public Information (DIP), has allowed NCN to leap forward

technologically and acquire the capacity to reach far-flung areas such as Lethem, Mabaruma, Mahdia and Orealla, among others. The satellite teleport at NCN has been set up primarily for the purpose of transmitting The Learning Channel content to hinterland areas. It is intended also that national events will be broadcast to the 16 locations across Guyana, the DIP said. The previous government had paid TVG $3M monthly to relay the Learning Channel’s programmes across Guyana via satellite. The APNU+AFC has since scrapped the deal.
Meanwhile,the Prime Minister who has ministerial responsibility for NCN, said, that this latest move is also part of the country’s defence of its sovereignty. “Guyana is ours…all of Guyana is ours, the Essequibo and the rest of Guyana,” Nagamootoo said. According to him, the boosting of NCN is also part of the government’s fulfilment of a promise to provide information for all Guyanese. “I also see this not only in keeping with the promise made to provide information to our Guyanese people, but this is securing a defence capability, a security capability, because the first line of defence in a situation such as ours is the ability to communicate,” Nagamootoo told the gathering at the commissioning. Nagamootoo said too that the satellite transmission would also be used to broadcast events of the 50th Independence Anniversary celebration to other areas of the country. He hopes that the 50th Anniversary activities would be seen by all across the country.