2010 elec­tion

The Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) has been served with a le­gal let­ter by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), claim­ing that the Gov­ern­ment is abus­ing its au­thor­i­ty for this elec­tion pe­ri­od. In a let­ter dat­ed May 15, 2010, Om Lal­la stat­ed that his client, the UNC, en­tered in­to con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments with var­i­ous tele­vi­sion and ra­dio com­pa­nies to pur­chase broad­cast air­time. How­ev­er, Lal­la stat­ed the Gov­ern­ment had de­mand­ed the same air time for which the UNC had al­ready en­tered an agree­ment. Those days in­clude May 16 (to­day), May 17 and May 23. The let­ter stat­ed that fail­ing to hear from the au­thor­i­ty would re­sult in the UNC seek­ing re­dress in the High Court with­out no­tice.

Lal­la stat­ed that on May 14, a for­mal no­ti­fi­ca­tion from the Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Ltd was sent to all tele­vi­sion and ra­dio com­pa­nies. The let­ter claims that the no­ti­fi­ca­tion said "that they (tele­vi­sion and ra­dio com­pa­nies) are re­quired to al­lo­cate cer­tain days and times for an ad­dress to the na­tion by Mr Patrick Man­ning, Prime Min­is­ter, of T&T." Lal­la stat­ed: "The times de­mand­ed are prime air time, which in­clude the fol­low­ing days all at 8 pm, at which times our client has al­ready en­tered in­to con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments with sev­er­al ra­dio and tele­vi­sion sta­tions."

As such, Lal­la re­ferred the au­thor­i­ty to Sec­tion 3 of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act of T&T, Act No 4 of 2001. Part of the act es­tab­lish­es con­di­tions for, "an open mar­ket for telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices, in­clud­ing con­di­tions for fair com­pe­ti­tion, at the na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els." Lal­la has asked the au­thor­i­ty to ex­er­cise its pow­ers in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion, to en­sure that there is equal­i­ty of treat­ment for all cit­i­zens.