Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The ac­counts of the T&T Ra­dio Net­work (TTRN), the par­ent com­pa­ny of ra­dio sta­tions 96.1 We FM, STAR 94.7 and 107.7 Mu­sic for Life owned by An­tho­ny “Chi­nese Laun­dry” Chow Lin On, have been gar­nished by the State.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Chow Lin On owes $34 mil­lion to the Board on In­land Rev­enue (BIR) for un­paid tax­es. How­ev­er, that sum is ex­clu­sive of in­ter­est on the debt for the pe­ri­od 2015-2024.

Ac­cord­ing to the BIR let­ter, the ac­counts were seized on April 25.

At a meet­ing called with all staff last Wednes­day, Chow Lin On said he was hop­ing to have the mat­ter re­solved, by way of a pay­ment plan to the State, by the end of the month.

He said the sta­tion’s busi­ness mod­el was ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by the COVID pan­dem­ic and had not suf­fi­cient­ly re­cov­ered. This was fur­ther com­pound­ed by the fail­ure of ad­ver­tis­ing agen­cies to pay sums owed to the sta­tions on time.

Guardian Me­dia was told that staff, over 80 em­ploy­ees, have been asked to take pay cuts to con­tin­ue the busi­ness un­til the mat­ter can be re­solved.

Chow Lin On did not re­turn calls or mes­sages on the mat­ter and Guardian Me­dia was told that he was out of the coun­try since last Thurs­day.