RADIO LICENCE

The non granting by Government of a radio licence to the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, a decision which did not find favour with a High Court Judge on Thursday, was both a denial of equal treatment, as Justice Carlton Best ruled, and an uncomfortable transparency lapse by Government. It should not happen again. Either the policy of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is to grant radio and for that matter television licences according to clearly laid down guidelines or it opens itself not merely to litigation, with its consequent needless waste of taxpayers’ funds, but also to the charge of not being transparent in its day to day affairs.

The unfortunate view arising from this stupidity is that the Maha Sabha was ignored because it is the largest Hindu body in the country. It had to sue in order to obtain a radio licence, which should have been granted it in the first place. The fact is that there is also the perception that the issue is political as well as ethnic, since the Maha Sabha is seen as traditionally supporters of the Opposition UNC. The perception of partiality was further strengthened when in ignoring the Maba Sabha the right to a radio licence, Government granted a licence to Citadel, whose Executive Chairman, Louis Lee Sing, was referred to by Justice Best in the course of handing down his historic ruling, as “a known supporter of the ruling Party”. In addition, of critical importance was that the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha’s application was made 17 months before that of Citadel’s. Justice is not a cloistered virtue. It must bear the scrutiny of ordinary men including the ordinary men and women who are public servants and whose salaries are paid by all. They must bear this in mind all the time even when their political bosses break the rules.

Government’s clear lack of transparency in this matter has been exposed yet further by the disclosure by Deputy Director of Telecommunications, Mala Guinness, made in an affidavit, that the Maha Sabha’s and Citadel’s applications, had been among a number of applications which had gone missing as a result of staff shortages. It would have been better, and certainly far less annoyingly controversial, had Government, applying the scales of justice evenly, granted radio licences to both the Hindu body and Citadel at the same time. But to grant it to Citadel was eminently unjust. In turn, Government, perhaps unwittingly, in bypassing the Maha Sabha for a radio licence, which according to procedure should have been granted to the Hindu group, may have opened a virtual Pandora’s Box. Many questions will arise, not the least of which is this: Was this  the People’s National Movement Government idea of transparency?