VETERAN journalist Sunity Maharaj says she does not buy CNMG's explanation that Fazeer Mohammed was a victim of cost-cutting.

"Certainly, no CEO worth his/her salt would fire a popular current affairs broadcaster who provided a competitive advantage in the crowded morning-show market," she said in a statement to the Express yesterday.

"What we are seeing is the direct consequence of the confusion that has arisen as a result of the Prime Minister's decision to pull all State-owned media resources into her portfolio."

Maharaj said Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's lack of clarity on the difference between CNMG as a State enterprise operating in the broadcast media sector, and GISL as the information arm of the Government, has created a situation where CNMG and GISL, despite being separate legal entities with completely different mandates, have been effectively, if not legally, merged.

"The evidence of this is the ease with which the interim CEO of CNMG (Ken Ali) has assumed the role of government information employee in travelling with the PM to New York, while the CEO of GISL (Andy Johnson) is seconded to CNMG as a talk show host," she said.

The one positive thing about this moment, though, "is that it gives the people of Trinidad and Tobago a powerful opportunity to discuss and debate the future of the national resource that we own in CNMG, as a state-of-the-art broadcast entity", she added.

"I therefore encourage all interests, especially those in the creative sector—including independent producers, media practitioners, educators, cultural activists and entities and civil society groups—to engage this debate in determining the future of CNMG."