Broadcasters warned to comply with necessary obligations or face legal action

Cable, television and radio broadcasters are being called on to pay up their fees and comply with the necessary legislative obligations or face legal action, this after the operators were given literally hours to reapply for licences as a result of amendments made to the Broadcast Act.
According to a public notice issued over the weekend, the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) is calling on all of the operators to settle all fees due and payable to the Authority.

The GNBA has since warned, “in order to be eligible for the issuance of a broadcast licence, overall compliance is required”.
The new fee regime has been challenged in the court with at least one broadcaster, Freedom Radio, having its Director filing a legal challenge also claiming that provisions in the Broadcast Act expropriate the business’s airwaves without compensation, causing it to lose on revenue during primetime.
As it relates to the fees, Freedom Radio, in filing litigation, pointed to the drastically altered fee regime which is now being charged under the principal Act.
In the sworn affidavit filed by Freedom Radio Inc Director Irfaan Ali, the fees were said to have been increased to G$7.5 million annually, up from G$2.5 million.
Freedom Radio Inc previously paid G$2.5 million annually for its broadcasting licence in addition to another payment of G$633,600 for its spectrum/frequency.
These fees were paid over to the then National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU), the predecessor to the GNBA, which came into being with the assent of Head of State, David Granger to the amended broadcasting laws.
Under the new fee regime, the Administration introduced a zoning system with fees for each zone.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) last week reminded that despite calls from the Guyana Press Association, Caribbean Association of Media Workers, Reporters Without Borders and other major organisations representing the cause of journalism and freedom of the press to the Government to withdraw the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2017, “the Government ignored all these calls, [and] passed the Bill in the National Assembly”.
After President Granger assented to the Bill, upon the directions of the Prime Minister, the GNBA has begun to enforce its provisions.