Burchell sparks uproar in House over media tax break claims

Nekeisha Burchell, opposition spokesperson on culture, creative industries, and information, triggered a firestorm in Gordon House on Wednesday when she declared that some media houses had received substantial tax concessions along with the bulk of the Government’s advertising expenditure.

“Some stations get hefty tax write-offs, and others are struggling, and this raises important questions about public communication governance and the independence of media that must make you feel uncomfortable,” she contended during her contribution to the Sectoral Debate on Wednesday.

Burchell’s remarks were met with strong pushback from the government benches, with acting leader of government business Robert Morgan rising on a point of order. 

Morgan complained to the Speaker that a “very serious allegation” was made by Burchell that “a media house was the beneficiary of massive write-offs”.

He accused Burchell of casting a cloud over the entire local media landscape by stating that the Government offered huge write-offs to them.

However, in her ruling, Speaker of the House Juliet Holness said the St James Southern member of parliament did not breach the Standing Orders as she did not name a media entity that had, allegedly, benefitted. 

Continuing, Burchell charged that while some private media entities were “protected”, the state institutions of communication such as the Jamaica Information Service and the Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica were suffering from underinvestment. 

She indicated that the current state of affairs should prompt Parliament and the Jamaican people to ask “who has eyes on the total national communication spend across government?”.

“Every government, every agency, every department has a huge PR (public relations) budget. And I raised that very question to the information minister during the Standing Finance Committee here, and she said she don't know how much money is being spent on information collectively across the government service. So where does duplication exist? What value-for-money oversight exists? And are our taxpayers receiving maximum public benefit from these expenditures?” she queried.

 Additionally, Burchell called for a modern digital communication policy, a social media governance framework, an artificial intelligence policy, and stronger information management systems across Government. She said this was crucial because ministers and governments change, but public institutions remain.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com