Gajraj files complaint with Broadcast Advisory Committee
Stabroek News
November 5, 2002
Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj has lodged a formal complaint with the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) in relation to television reports he had left the country the morning of the Lamaha Gardens shootings.
Gajraj did not leave the country as sections of the electronic media reported. ACB chairman, Pat Dyal confirmed that Gajraj along with the PPP had lodged a complaint and it was being processed.
He confirmed too that the committee’s work would in no way be hampered by Gajraj’s application to the court for redress.
Both Gajraj and PPP General Secretary Donald Ramotar, have berated the errant section of the media in separate statements. In addition, Gajraj has sued NBTV Channel 9 and talk show host, Lorri Alexander, over the reports they carried on the station. The court also granted Gajraj’s application for an injunction preventing the station and Alexander from repeating the report.
The ACB was established as a result of a memorandum of understanding signed between President Bharrat Jagdeo and PNC/R leader Desmond Hoyte. Its tenure will expire upon the establishment of the Broadcast Authority created by new broadcast legislation.
Among other things its functions include advising the Minister on the issuance, suspension and/or termination of television broadcasting station licences (including termination of unlicensed broadcasts); monitoring the adherence to or breach of broadcast standards relating to content by licensees; and receiving and investigating public opinion or complaints on broadcast standards.
Government sees the ACB as a watchdog monitoring the adherence of the television stations to the conditions of their licences but sources close to the ACB say that it sees its primary function as nudging the television stations towards self-regulation and raising the standard of their operations.
When it recently moved to sanction the stations it was at the prompting of the Prime Minister, who has portfolio responsibility for communications after a public outcry over the airing of a tape made by another of the February 23 escapees, Andrew Douglas.