Caracas, March 22, 2023 (Press Mincomunas) – On Wednesday, The National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) delivered the first administrative titles to 52 community radio stations through a joint effort with the People’s Power Ministry for Communes and Social Movements and the Ministry of Communication and Information.
During the ceremony of delivery of the title certificates, effective for five years, at the Commission’s headquarters in Caracas; Jorge Marquez, Minister of the Office of the Presidency and President of Conatel highlighted how the activity settled a debt with one of the Commander Hugo Chavez’s dreams, as was the creation of community radio stations, and that now this first group is framed within the legality.
“This is the beginning of the great work we have to do. We have to go all over the country and deliver all the administrative titles that we have to deliver. We are going to go to the states in accompaniment with the Ministry of Communes and the Ministry of Communication to do the survey we have to do to speed up all the processes”, he announced.
Marquez indicated that in the battle he is waging to eliminate the bureaucratic procedures, he achieved that these first stations and all those to come would be exempt from payment in the Autonomous Service of Registries and Notaries (Saren).
In this respect, he emphasized that “we cannot put obstacles in the way of the Communal Power. We are in a moment of battle; in which we need our people to know the truth. We have to work with President Nicolas Maduro in this battle against corruption. You (radio station managers) are the multipliers of this message that our President is generating”. He also added that, from now on, the Ministry of Communes would endorse the titles.
The head of the communal office, Jorge Arreaza, asked the beneficiaries of the first administrative titles for ideas to build, together with his portfolio, a model for community radio station management.
He congratulated the People’s Power that now counts on “canons” (radio stations) legally protected and safeguarded by the Venezuelan State’s legal system. He recalled that Chavez considered communication as fundamental. For this reason, he gave tools to the people to generate content and defend the truth, thus democratizing the radio-electric space. Concerning the current anti-corruption crusade developed by the Venezuelan State, Minister Arreaza assured that the best vaccine against corruption is to get the people involved in government management and that we must understand this at four levels: national, regional, municipal, and communal.
“You are the government in the territory. That is why it is so important that your relationship with the formal power, the Communal Councils, and the Communes be an absolute fusion. You must shape your programming in an assembly of citizens and the Communal Council and of the Communes and their government instances”, he oriented.
Congressman Juan Carlos Aleman, president of the Communication Commission of the National Assembly, attended the activity and defined it as an act of deep social justice. He emphasized that we must advance, as Arreaza stated, “in this kind of legitimization before the citizens’ assembly, but another work that we must promote from the Ministry of Communes and Conatel is the users’ committee”. He also mentioned the search for a financing mechanism or technical support for the issue of the transmitters of the radio stations.
