…for broadcasters
Some folks just don’t know when to keep their mouths shut. But then again, it might be that endemic condition called “logorrhoea” – otherwise known as “verbal diarrhoea”. Like this Tony Vieira fella – born with a silver spoon in his mouth into the only plantation owning Guyanese family – who became their prodigal son. While his cousins showed aptitude and gravitated into law and the professions, Tony had to be sent into the cane fields. His big mouth was seen as an asset as a “driver” of sugar workers.
At a time when TV was banned by the PNC in Guyana – the only country in the Western Hemisphere to suffer that fate – Tony Vieira was allowed to open up a TV station from the old “Big Manager” house he inherited at Versailles. With this TV “monopoly” having a captive audience, he stole content from US satellites and sold it to Guyanese who had to buy his “black box”! That’s right – this man sold stolen copyrighted products and made out like the bandit he was – off the sweat of ordinary Guyanese who earned a pittance in the “Burnham years”.
And he called himself an “entrepreneur”!! In another era, fellas like him and Blackbeard were called “pirates”. Come to think of it, they’re still called “pirates”!! Nuh? But with the passing of his benefactor and the entree of real entrepreneurs like CN Sharma into TV broadcasting, Vieira faced competition for the first time. And folded like a limp noodle!!
Sold off his TV and fled to Florida… where, he obviously also couldn’t survive without the help of a “godfather”. He turned up back in Guyana like the proverbial bad penny. And just couldn’t believe his old TV was now a success! Hell hath no fury like a fella who’s proven to be a fraud! So out he came swinging at the new owner.
In the professions, they say “those who can’t…teach”. Well it seems in broadcasting “those who can’t… sit on regulatory Boards”. So as an old PNC man, Vieira was appointed on Broadcasting Board. With his logorrhoea in full flow, he went out of his way to – what else? – rip into the owner of TVG! Without even appraising himself of the facts, he pre-empted those authorised to speak on such matters and blurted out, “He ain’t gon see a licence for 2016.”
Never mind his TV friends who owed license fees to the tune of 1 milion – unlike TVG which owes nothing – were to be given an amnesty!! Like Vieira, they can only survive with a free pass.
Vieira’s motto is “Survival of the weakest – once they’re friends!”
…for Ogle aircraft owners
For some reason, President Granger’s very insistent that Ogle International Airport (OIA) be renamed “Eugene F Correia Airport”. Pressie first made the proposal last September when he launched the latest aircraft of the Correia Group. And therein lies the rub why subsequently the name change was opposed by a majority of the aircraft owners that operate out of Ogle.
Now OIA is run as a Private Public Partnership where the Correia Group are the major private investor. Even before the renaming suggestion, the other private aircraft owners had complained bitterly that the Correia Group was running OIA like their private fiefdom. They wrote, “The Correia Group controls the Airport and has increased the cost of fuel; monopolised ground handling and other services and arbitrarily terminated tenancy contracts with the apparent aim of forcing us out.”
Now imagine the advantage that’ll be conferred on the Correia Group when the airport becomes “CORREIA international Airport”.
And folks have to choose between a “Correia Airline” and the “others!!”
…for input into state media
Reacting to some trenchant criticism of the degeneration of the political culture of the AFC by WPA’s David Hinds (wasn’t it degenerate to begin with?) Ramjattan outed Hinds writing, “Editorial columns of the state-owned newspaper.”
Ramjattan just re-affirmed his degeneracy by not mentioning Nagamootoo censoring those editorials!
