PS: CNMG can make money

STATE broadcaster CNMG can balance its books, declared Ministry of Public Administration permanent secretary (PS) Joan Mendez to a Parliament Committee chaired by Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George.

The PS was confident that spending cuts plus revenues from advertising would make CNMG viable, she told the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), sitting at Tower D, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain on Wednesday. “I’m positive we should have good revenue generation at CNMG,” she said.

However when Annisette-George asked about Government proposals to replace CNMG with a revived TTT, Mendez said this question was still before Cabinet, adding, “There is no final determination.”

The committee got an outline of Mendez’s reasons for optimism over CNMG’s balance sheet. She said CNMG’s earnings included the sale of advertising during the broadcast of local programmes, such as Carnival shows. Further costs had been cut by reducing the length of the CNMG News from one hour to half hour, and by staff reductions by way of resignations, retirements and people heading to greener pastures which reduced CNMG’s administrative costs.

Also at the hearing the committee used the occasion to bat for Public Service staff yet call for better performance. Saying the general public has a perception of “less than ideal service” at Government offices, Fyzabad MP Dr Lackram Bodoe asked if public servants should wear personal name-tags so as to feel more accountable when serving members of the public?

Deputy PS Claudelle Mc Kellar said the relevant trade unions would first have to be consulted on what he called a “negotiable issue.” Committee members giggled. Also in reply to Bodoe, Mc Kellar said in 2012 the ministry used “mystery shoppers” to check out the quality of service at its various units, adding that it worked quite well and could be done again under the ministry’s guidelines.