“Glenn Lall willing to destroy Guyana out of envy”

Guyana Times and its publisher Dr Bobby Ramroop are facing not just a baptism of fire but an unrelenting campaign of hate by the Kaieteur News (KN) and its owner Glenn Mohan Lall that is still in full swing.
KN was in business when Dr Ramroop acquired the NEW GPC in 1999. Yet until 2008, when the newspaper was launched, there was not a single negative article about Dr Ramroop or the NEW GPC. But between 2008 and the present, there have been almost 1700 scurrilous attacks through articles, columns, letters (manufactured), etc in the KN almost daily.
While in the history of the press in Guyana there have been several instances when new entrants challenged the status quo and earned their ire, the scale, scope and intensity of the attacks by Lall and his mouthpiece KN against the Guyana Times is unprecedented. It demands explanation.
Press background
Around the time of independence, Guyana had a very vibrant newspaper culture – with almost half a dozen dailies and even an evening edition. The Burnham regime single-handedly destroyed that multiplicity of views in its drive to control all facets of the society and more pertinently, the thoughts of the populace.
In addition to nationalising some of the major newspapers – a few owned by foreign companies – the PNC government used various stratagems to stifle the others. At one time it actually prevented them from importing newsprint. Its transparent ploy of citing shortage of foreign currency to purchase newsprint – under a regime of currency controls – was exposed when he refused to allow newsprint as gifts into the country.
Burnham’s successor Desmond Hoyte allowed a new privately owned newspaper – the Stabroek News in 1986. The newspaper received an initial grant of US$100,000 from the U.S. semi-governmental sponsored National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which might have signalled to the PNC regime that the U.S. wanted greater press freedom in Guyana.
The privately-owned Kaieteur News followed about a decade later – after the PNC had been voted out of office by the people. A new era of comparative newspaper liveliness returned as the two privately-owned papers and the state-owned Chronicle competed for, and rebuilt the newspaper readership. The distinctive feature of the Kaieteur News was its adoption of the sensationalist tabloid strategy that pandered to the lowest common denominator.
Guyana Times entry

In 2008, Guyana Times entered the scene, announcing that it wanted to be a serious “newspaper of record”. Guyana Times introduced the highest quality press with the highest quality newsprint to produce a newspaper that is designed to raise the bar for the industry, not only in the quality, but also the content. Cognisant of the responsibility of the media in general, and the press in particular, to educate the population in a developing nation, the paper introduced several new features such as “Page 6”, a foundation page that addresses issues of interest to youths.
It was always the position of Guyana Times that Guyana’s newspaper readership could be rebuilt to the “glory years” numbers, by adding new readers who were interested in its new thrust and orientation. Obviously, it understood that it was introducing an element of competition in the field, but felt that this was part and parcel of building that responsive press culture it sought. But not everyone accepted this premise.
KN attacks
From the moment Guyana Times was launched, the KN initiated a vicious campaign designed to destroy the newspaper. First, it derided the quantity of newspapers the company was selling; then it attacked the newspaper’s nationalistic developmental stance, as being “government” friendly.

In the ensuing years, the attacks became more personal and the owner of KN became personally involved in slinging mud not only at Guyana Times but its owner, Dr Bobby Ramroop. For some reason, the owner of KN started a vendetta against then President Bharrat Jagdeo and claimed that the latter actually owned the newspaper.
And the personalisation of the attacks became even more intense and frequent: there were almost daily assaults. Gradually, the scope of the attacks widened to include the several companies that Dr Ramroop operated under Queens Atlantic Investment Inc (QAII). The NEW GPC was excoriated, although it was in compliance with pre-qualification bidding procedures. The newspaper refused to acknowledge NEW GPC’s legal basis of securing government contracts. The hardware division came under fire, but one of the most bizarre angles was when a series of news articles claimed Dr Ramroop owned a new charter airline, EZJet.
In a week-long series of “advertisements”, transparently sponsored by KN, it boiled down that an ex-Guyana Times employee, who had been let go a year before, was now the country manager of EZJet and this made Dr Ramroop the owner! By that logic, ex-Peoples’ National Congress (PNC) employee Adam Harris (editor of New Nation), who is now editor-in-chief of KN makes the PNC the owner of KN!
Following that tripe, the KN sunk even lower to attack Dr Ramroop even more personally.
In its hatred, envy and resentment for Guyana Times and its publisher, the KN has been willing to attack the integrity of companies that are committed to building Guyana. The NEW GPC, for instance, is a world-class pharmaceutical manufacturing company.
Glenn Lall, the owner of the KN, seems to have found a purpose in life to bring Guyana around his head just to satisfy his ego. He has single-handedly destroyed Guyana’s reputation in the investment and overseas communities. In his pursuit, he has lambasted projects like the Guyana National Stadium, the CJIA expansion, the Amaila Falls Hydro Project, the Berbice Bridge, just to name a few. The local business community and those in the several political camps that have either assisted Lall or have been silent are equally complicit in his vendetta.
But Guyana Times, its publisher and his companies refuse to kowtow to the KN and their agenda of envy and hate. We are here to stay to build our motherland.