As the fall out continues over the decision by the Editor-in-Chief of the state-owned Guyana Chronicle to cut ties with two columnists, three Directors have resigned from the board of the company.

Veteran Journalist Bert Wilkinson, Communications Specialist Karen Davis and Executive Member of the Working People’s Alliance, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley have all tendered their resignations, catching the rest of the board by surprise.

News Source understands that a Board meeting was called today and it was at that meeting that it was announced that the three have decided to cut ties with the state-owned newspaper.

Wilkinson, Davis and Sarabo-Halley were all against the Editor-in-Chief’s move to fire columnists  Lincoln Lewis and David Hinds.

Although the Editor-in-Chief, Nigel Williams said his decision was in keeping with a new direction that the newspaper is heading, Board members were blindsided when they learnt of the two well-known political columnists being fired.

Williams also cut ties with two other columnists, Sherod Duncan and Leonard Craig. Both are members of the Alliance For Change and Duncan also sits on the Board of the Directors at the Guyana Chronicle. He was one of the Directors who supported Williams’ decision,

An emergency Board meeting was called just after the firings three weeks ago, but that meeting ended with the majority of the Board deciding to stick with the Editor-in-Chief’s decision.

The three Directors who have now resigned were against the firing of Lewis and Hinds from the inception and made known their displeasure at the Board level.

Lincoln Lewis and David Hinds are both supporters of the Coalition government, with Hinds sitting on the Executive of the Working People’s Alliance. However, their columns in many instances openly criticized the government on several of its decisions.

A number of Government Ministers raised the criticism issue at the level of Cabinet and whiile some of them expressed uneasiness with the criticism, others did not have a problem and were not bothered by the columns.

Both Hinds and Lewis believe the decision to remove them as columnists came from the government. The Government has said very little on the issue, although some of the political parties of the coalition have publicly made known their disagreement with the move.

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