The move by state broadcaster, NCN, to suspend its sports editor over a statement about a colleague on Facebook, has not found favour with President David Granger, who has described the move by NCN’s Management as “inhumane”.

During a recording of the President’s weekly “Public Interest” television programme, Mr. Granger slammed NCN for not showing compassion and sending the sports editor on a one month suspension without pay.

“There could be a more reasonable form of administration. I think it is inhumane to deprive an employee of her salary without due process. She hasn’t committed a crime. It is not as though she is a murderer and I think that it was inhumane to take away her salary and to suspend her from her job. I don’t know that she has committed any crime at all”, the President said.

The President said there now needs to be instructions sent to management at state entities that “this is not a power play. We are running an administration for the benefit of the Guyanese people. And it must not become a platform for one person to exercise absolute power. There must be rules”.

Archibald remains on the no pay suspension even after the intervention of the Ministry of Social Protection and the Guyana Press Association. The NCN Chief Executive Officer, Lennox Cornette, earlier in the week said he has taken note of the GPA’s call for the suspension to be withdrawn.

Although NCN is without a social media policy, Cornette instructed the Human Resources Manager to hand down the one month no pay suspension even as the HR Manager pleaded for a more lenient punishment over Archibald’s Facebook post about being “surrounded by idiots” as she questioned an NCN announcer’s decision to question President Granger about the Pokemon game.

President Granger also slammed NCN’s removal of News Anchor, Natasha Smith, from the airwaves over her pregnancy and rising baby bump.

Smith has since reassumed her duties as News Anchor following the intervention of the Guyana Press Association and widespread criticism by activists over the move.

NCN’s Chief Executive Officer has repeatedly denied that he gave instructions for Smith to be taken off air, but a leaked copy of the minutes of an August 8, 2016 meeting of NCN management revealed that it was indeed the CEO who recommended that she be temporarily removed from the anchor’s chair.

President Granger said the move by NCN management was “out of place”.

“We didn’t think it would have come to do this, because as I am concerned NCN was quite out of place , out of order to have the person removed from the job that she was doing”, he said during the Public Interest appearance. 

On Wednesday the President said pregnancies should be celebrated and ought not to be treated like something strange.

He said he hopes to see NCN and other state entities exhibit more compassion when seeking to address issues with employees.

The National Communications Network falls under the portfolio of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo. The Prime Minister has also criticized the NCN management over the Smith removal.

The Guyana Press Association following a meeting with the NCN Chief Executive Officer, earlier in the week, issued a call for the Office of the Prime Minister and the Chairman of NCN to probe the operations of the state-owned media broadcast company.

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