Kelvin Lewis, SLAJ Prexy
By Umaru Fofana
Senegalese president Macky Sall has announced an increase in the subvention given to the private media in his country, and thanked them for holding his government to account, and advancing “the country's digital presence”.
While the president did not give the percentage of increased subvention, the Senegalese government currently gives the country's media union, known by its acronym as SYNPICS, US$ 1 million, annually.
The Senegalese government - under the former president Abdoulaye Wade and the current president - was also the biggest contributor in building the SYNPICS state-of-the-art headquarters situated along the posh Corniche highway in Dakar.
Addressing journalists on Friday, President Sall also announced that all media houses wishing to assign a reporter to the presidency were entitled to do so without precondition or any attempt to influence their editorial independence.
Since their election in 2008 the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma has not given subvention to the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) despite his predecessor Ahmad Tejan kabbah having done so. Ironically, Alhaji Ibrahim Kargbo was SLAJ President then and would later serve as information minister under Koroma for about seven years.
SLAJ President Kelvin Lewis has reacted resignedly to the development in Senegal and the issue of the nonpayment of subvention to his association. “It is very sad and disappointing for the media in Sierra Leone,” he told Politico. He added that his executive had made “representation to the government several times over, and to the finance ministry several times over but no one seems willing to do anything”.
Lewis said this had “reduced some journalists to going around with a begging bowl which is demeaning to our status”.
Reacting, Minister of Information, Alpha Kanu emmed and erred and sighed and paused before saying: “We are committed to creating an enabling environment for freedom of the press and we will do whatever we can to improve on the operations of the media”.
Kanu said President Koroma had promised that his government would help with subvention for the private media through SLAJ but that it coincided with the Ebola outbreak which he said adversely affected the country’s economy.
Asked whether Ebola had not only been around for less than two years with Koroma’s presidency in its ninth year, the minister said he could only speak about his tenure as the line minister. He however assured that the promise made by president Koroma to help with subvention “is still alive and we will look into it when everything normalises”. He cautioned though that Senegal had a bigger economy and could afford to do that.
A media lecturer at Fourah Bay College said journalism was more than just a trade. “It is a civic duty and responsibility journalists carry out in the interest of the public by holding the government to account which is why it behoves the state to provide the media with subvention without seeking to compromise them”.
Senegal has a vibrant media which enjoys a great degree of freedom. It has a record of robustly holding successive governments to account.
The Scandinavian countries give the highest subvention to the private media and the journalists in those countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are said to hold their governments to account the most in the world.
(C) Politico 17/02/16
