…Chairman tells delinquent operators to be fully complaint or face legal action
Even as the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) issued six radio licenses to broadcasters during a Friday morning ceremony, the entity is warning delinquent operators to get their compliance in order by March 2018 or face legal action.
Speaking after the ceremony, GNBA Chairman Leslie Sobers announced the three months grace period.
He told media operatives that while some broadcasters have been making contact and working out payment terms, others are not so circumspect.
“Things are happening and once they bring themselves into full compliance, we will be licencing but converse to this is that those persons who insist, who are continually refusing or failing to bring themselves up into full compliance, we will not issue them with licences…[and] call upon them to stop broadcasting and then take legal action against them if they continue,” he said.
Sobers stressed that illegal broadcasting would not be allowed to continue past the first quarter of the year.
He said that as soon as this period is over, legal action will be taken against defaulters and any unlawful broadcasters still on air will be taken off.
“So that’s a message to all illegal broadcasters. Bring yourselves into full compliance or be prepared to be taken off the air by March. That should be fair enough,” he asserted.
At the ceremony, six entities received their broadcasting licenses, with Sobers announcing that they had brought themselves into compliance as of 2016.
These entities are:Chandra Narine Sharma, Pinnacle, Blackman and Sons, Brutal Tracks, Two Brothers Corp and the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
This is the second distribution exercise carried out by the authority under Sobers’ tenure. In November of last year, six entities also received licences.
