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| Terry Forrester |
Executive member of the ruling New National Party, Terry Forrester has come out in defense of the decision taken by the Government Information Service (GIS) to "doctor" the tapes of a press conference involving Deputy Prime Minister, Gregory Bowen.
Bowen had called the press conference to brief the media on several matters including the multi-million lawsuit brought against him by U.S oil investor, Jack Grynberg.
Speaking on the popular, "Sundays With George Grant" radio programme, Forrester claimed that several of the statements made at the press conference by Editor of the Grenada Today newspaper, George Worme were thought to be slanderous and even tantamount to be libelous.
In an earlier call to the programme, the NNP official sought to respond to Grant's assertion that the GIS tape that was sent to him omitted a great portion of the proceedings Forrester attempted to defend or clarify the rationale behind the actions of GIS, stating that it could have resulted due to lousy equipment.
However, he later called back to give a much fuller and elaborate explanation as to why the tape was "doctored" by the GIS.
He said he editing was done since it was felt by GIS that some of the questions asked by Worme were deemed to be libelous.
"Regarding the matter of GIS doctoring or editing that Press Conference I thought it was necessary for me to seek the facts from the persons concerned and I did just that. And there is a very simple explanation to it. "The fact remains that several statements in that Press Conference made by Mr George Worme of the Grenada Today newspaper were thought to be slanderous and even tantamount to be libelous hence the reason why GIS thought it necessary to be cautious and not reprint or rebroadcast those slanderous and libelous statements.
"So it had nothing to do with equipment failure which I thought may have occurred which happens from time to time you yourself had that problem too, George but it was a clear dedicated and edited version of the press conference in order to safeguard legally the GIS from any legal action by individuals relative to the slander and libelous statements made by Mr George Worme and others in that press conference.
"So I just wanted to make it absolutely and abundantly clear that these were the reasons....", he added.
Press Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, Barry Collymore of Barbados was questioned by this newspaper on whether or not the Editor would again be facing legal action by the State in relation to the so-called statement deemed to be "slanderous and even tantamount to be libelous" .
According to Collymore, he is not aware that the Keith Mitchell-led New National Party (NNP) government was contemplating such action.
However, he added that GIS which is mandated to promote the work of the government has a right to protect itself and its image and has to make editorial decisions that will protect the company.
Collymore noted that the statements made by Forrester on the Sunday morning programme were done on behalf of the NNP as a party and not the government itself.
In a brief comment on the episode, Worme said that it was obvious that Bowen and the NNP regime are not comfortable with certain pointed questions that were asked since the answers provided by the senior government minister were quite revealing.
"This matter with the nation's potential oil and gas reserves is an unfolding one and in the fullness of time other information will come out showing the Keith Mitchell/Gregory Bowen involvement in the whole episode", he remarked.
"We have more documents to bring to the attention of the public-at-large at the right time to allow them to judge the kind of people in charge of their affairs in recent years", he said.
