Dear Editor,
I am obliged to respond to the article “Setting the record straight on Linden television”, by Imran Khan, Director of Public Information, which appeared in the State paper on March 29, 2017. 
Khan’s article should be seen for what it is: a veiled attempt to excuse the non-implementation of the APNU/AFC campaign promise, and an excuse for the failure and inability of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo to successfully conclude this initiative so far. Further, in penning this letter, Khan sought to take a swipe at the former PPP/C administration.
I will address, firstly, the question of the implementing of Linden TV, and secondly, the events behind this call, which Khan so skilfully and colourfully misrepresents in his first three paragraphs.
We are nearly two years into our APNU/AFC Coalition, and Linden TV is not yet up and running. Obviously there have been problems – problems which one might have expected to disappear with the PPP/C out of office. As I have written before, the PPP and the PPP/C are not all that is wrong and bad for bauxite communities, Guyanese and Guyana. Indeed, I am ready to argue that we (PPP and PPP/C) have been good for all Guyanese and Guyana.
Let me acknowledge that a lot of anger and hostility to us might have been earnest, but as is the case here, a lot of it was not well founded. True, Green Construction Company in that time of foreign exchange difficulties arranged the purchase of the equipment/technology of the day (early 1980s), its delivery and setting up. They put in a bill for it. It was not free, and not a Green gift to anyone. Note that, from then to 2012, the technology supplied then was superseded many times over; some were destroyed in a fire and any remainder was no longer useful. Just consider the large thirty-foot receiving dishes on Richmond Hill, Linden and at Versailles (of VCT 28/TVG) and the small two-foot-and-less satellite dishes of today.
There was/is no Green TV to “return to the community for their full ownership, management and control”. It should be considered that handing over the present day NCN TV station in Region 10 presents a precedent for every RDC to plead for our Central Government to grant them a TV station in similar manner!
Sincerely,
Samuel A Hinds (OBE – Old Bauxite Employee)
Former Prime Minister, Former President
