Social commentator GHK Lall has delivered a blistering rebuke of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government over its handling of outstanding advertising payments to Stabroek News, accusing the administration of abandoning its own stated standards of responsibility.
In his column titled “SN ad payment, stoppage: how low the PPP goes,” Lall said Guyanese were assured during National Assembly proceedings that the PPP government “places a premium on honoring its debts” and conducts itself in “exemplary fashion.” However, he argued that the government’s actions toward Stabroek News tell a very different story.
According to Lall, the newspaper is owed $93.8 million in unpaid advertising revenue. After the issue was raised publicly in the Assembly, the government issued a payment of $7.4 million.
“By my counting, that equals approx. 7.89 cents on each dollar outstanding,” Lall wrote. “To pay such a small amount — seven cents plus on the dollar — after almost a year of arrears is a slap in the face; adding insult to injury in a very public manner. It’s an obscenity.”
Lall questioned whether the government would treat other entities in a similar manner. “Can anyone see the Government of Guyana getting away with that stunt with other entities? Such as paying Exxon or LindsayCa a lousy seven cents on the dollar for millions due?” he asked.
He said he initially expected that once senior government officials were alerted to the debt in the National Assembly, full payment would follow. Instead, he pointed to a subsequent decision by the Department of Public Information (DPI) to terminate advertisements in Stabroek News with immediate effect.
“No more ads with immediate effect came rushing out from the DPI,” he wrote, describing the move as “the proverbial last squeeze on SN, to put it out of its misery.”
With the newspaper’s final hardcopy edition set for March 15, Lall said the action amounted to “delivering a hard kick to a dying man.”
Founded in 1986 by David de Caires during a period when Guyana’s media environment was heavily restricted, Stabroek News emerged as an independent voice committed to investigative journalism and government accountability. Over nearly four decades, it established itself as one of the country’s most prominent privately owned newspapers and a pillar of independent media.
Lall posed pointed questions about the decision to halt advertisements: “Who in the PPP Govt is behind that no more ads decision? Which one of the government’s honorable leaders took that final fateful step, and why was it necessary at this late stage?”
He argued that if those questions cannot be answered transparently, then “mortally wounded is responsibility and standards in this country, and its long fall into indecency and disgrace.”
