‘We will pay’, Rohee says about PPP/C debts from elections campaign ads – but couldn’t say when

GUYANA CHRONICLE

“We will pay,” says General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Clement Rohee, referring to outstanding debts for advertisements during the 2015 General and Regional elections campaign.The PPP/C General Secretary was asked to respond to the issue of the debts owed to various entities at his weekly press conference at Freedom House and he asserted that the Party will pay all of its outstanding debts for advertisements from the 2015 General and Regional Elections campaign. “We will pay,” he stated when asked for a timeframe on the payment. This newspaper on Sunday reported that the PPP/C owes over $13M to the National Communications Network (NCN) for political advertisements aired by the state-owned media entity. Reports indicated that since May 27, NCN’s Marketing Manager, Raymond Azeez, had written to the Party with a reminder that the monies were owed but to date the PPP/C is yet to respond. The PPP/C also owes the Chronicle more than $5M for campaign ads published.

OWES SEVERAL ENTITIES Rohee, during his explanation, noted that the Party owes several entities sums of money for advertisements during the campaign season. He made it clear that the PPP/C is aware of its outstanding financial debts and that it intends to honour these debts but he could not state when the PPP/C would pay up. In May, it was reported that the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) and an advertising company were at variance over payments for PPP/C political billboards that were billed to the state company. When the bills, which amounted to some $7M, were forwarded to GWI, the company refused to accept responsibility for the amount, citing some grave modifications to specific designs that had been agreed upon by both sides.

By Rebecca Ganesh