By SEAN DOUGLAS, www.newsday.co.tt

THE National Broadcasting Network (NBN) which broadcasts Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) and radio stations like Radio 610 and FM100, will cease to exist on January 14, 2005. After an NBN management meeting held yesterday, this news was related to the company’s 200 staff by acting CEO Dominic Beaubrun. This shutdown date has been brought forward from the February 2005 date recently announced by Minister of Public Administration, Dr Lenny Saith.

Workers are being offered a VSEP package with strict dates by which they must indicate whether they are accepting or not. The distribution of letters to workers offering VSEP starts on December 28. The deadline for workers to respond to the offer is January 5, 2005, and acceptance must be notified by January 7, 2005. After the Government shuts down NBN, it intends to later re-open it as the "Caribbean New Media Group." Yesterday at NBN, the mood among workers was far from sombre. Workers have become resigned to the idea of NBN's closure, according to one staffer, and are at least glad for an end to all the long-running uncertainty. He said, "We are fed up with being used as a political football, and want to go ahead with our lives, once we know what the score is."