Green-eyed monster…

…in broadcasting
Anthony Vieira’s at it again and as usual he has his allies in the media with the same vindictive and envious agenda. They’re raising a furore over radio licences…but that’s just a proxy for their fury that others are succeeding in areas where they’ve failed miserably. But of course, since only their coterie ought to be successful, their rage knows no bounds. That green monster called “jealously” is a powerful master.
So Vieira writes a letter to the Stabber News, which the latter, through an ex-Television Guyana (TVG) employee, regurgitates as “news” that TVG’s facility to uplink television signals and then re-transmit them to remote locations violates the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph (GT&T) monopoly over telecommunications. Is this guy for real??? It’s obvious he’s just read his pal Enrico Woolford’s misinformed letter in which the latter exclaimed (in his oleaginous and rotund tone): “Are we saying that GT&T does not have satellite uplink facilities in the country? Are we saying that GT&T is not licensed to uplink and downlink voice and data?”
Well Vieira, Woolford and the Stabber have just revealed why they are on the outside looking in on a business they claim to know about. As one letter writer pointed out back when Woolford originally put his foot in his mouth, “Voice traffic is a two way communication, and the transport is dealt with in a vastly different way from Television Receive Only (TVRO) transmission. The equipment and bandwidth necessary for video transmission are different from that required for voice and data.”
So do they want to extend GT&T’s monopoly, which the trio are now defending, while calling themselves “free-enterprise” defenders, from voice and data to cover television broadcasts? Even the People’s National Congress (PNC), which gave away the Guyana Telecommunications Corporation for a song (and some grease under the table) forbade that nonsense. Look at the original Telecommunications Act 27 of 1990 under which GT&T operated. It specifically excluded radio and television broadcasts from its ambit.
But like we said, the real motive for all this noise is jealousy. The Stabber had a monopoly on Direct TV for quite a while and raked in the big bucks. It fears competition. Vieira is even more livid because he couldn’t turn a profit with Vieira Communications Limited (VCT). He thought he pulled a fast one when he sold it for US$ millions. Now that the business has been turned around through shrewd management, he just can’t stand it.
Especially since the fella making the profits isn’t from his tight, little, incestuous coterie.
…not paying taxes
One of the peculiar things about some human beings is hypocrisy. We know that everyone has a bit of discrepancy between their private selves and the ones they present to the public. But most of us take some care that the gap between the two doesn’t become a chasm. Because that’s when we become out-and-out flaming hypocrites.
There’s a strata in Georgetown that insists it’s morally superior to others…especially to those they consider the “great unwashed”. One of their gripes is that the latter, such as rice farmers, don’t pay their “fair” share of taxes. But the sad truth is that this same strata, which is made up of so-called “professionals”, rake in millions through their fees and charges and refuse to pay any taxes. Wasn’t it last year that senior-counsel wannabe, and Alliance For Change (AFC) Chairman, Nigel Hughes had to be forced to pay millions and millions of back taxes on his ‘Sidewalk Café’ property?
…in wages
The geriatric head of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) Patrick Yard, head of a union in which all its members have to retire at 55, just returned to his bluster about 90 per cent increases over three years!! Sign of incipient senility. Sad.