 The Guyana Elections Commission's Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) is to be formally shut down by the end of the month although the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has allocated funds for the entity until 2011, well-placed sources have told Demerara Waves.
The impending closure of the MMU has come several weeks after the Guyana Government formally lodged complaints to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) about alleged racist content in the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News. Those two privately-owned papers have been frequently criticicized by the Bharrat Jagdeo administration.
Government has also promised to table modern broadcast legislation in the National Assembly before the end of the year, using best-practices from Canada, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The local Court of Appeal has already ruled that the radio monopoly is unconstitutional.
The 11 staff members including six monitors will be put on the bread-line and paid one month's salary.
Commission Chairman, Steve Surujbally and sections of the international community believe that the MMU is a vital mechanism for media-accountability.
Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) spokesman, Vishnu Persaud confirmed that Surujbally met with the staff at their Church Street office on Tuesday morning when he advised them of the "imminent closure" of the unit.
Insiders, however, told Demerara Waves that the unit effectively ceased work today after the meeting with the chairman and several staffers have already begun removing their personal belongings.
The Office of the President, according to sources, has been insisting that the MMU be closed but no definitive reason has been given. "The project has been given the money but the government doesn't want us," said the staff-member. Demerara Waves understands that Surujbally had written the President's office, outlining compelling reasons why the MMU should not switch off its equipment.
“I am convinced that the function of the MMU, to a large extent is what allowed us to have a peaceful election in 2006. Even now the MMU keeps the media practitioners on the proverbial “straight and narrow path," said Surujbally had told Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon in a May 2011 letter.
While the MMU is part of the autonomous GECOM, international funding such as that being provided by the UNDP is subjected to negotiation and approval by the Guyana government.
The MMU has in the past collaborated with media and external experts in the formulation of a self-regulatory Code of Conduct in keeping with international benchmarks.
Using sophisticated equipment and methodologies, the MMU monitors the print and electronic media and provides media houses with those findings and recommendations. There is no legal-teeth but moral suasion that governs the unit's work.
When the likelihood of the MMU being closed was raised recently, staff-members were hoping that its life would have been extended to year-end.
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Comments
These freedom we all are asking for must come with Responsibility.
This is what that has been over looked and trampled upon recently in some of the Print Media,which must be Addressed.
Regards
Abdul Samad
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