GITEGA, Apr 12nd (ABP) – The Minister of Communication, Information Technologies and Media, Mme Léocadie Ndacayisaba, has promised to contact the National Communication Council (CNC) and the heads of the private media to agree with them on the dignified treatment of journalists in the said media.
She made those remarks on Tuesday April 9 at the Senate hemicycle in Gitega (central Burundi), where she was invited to answer Senators’ oral questions with debate.
Minister Ndacayisaba expressed her commitment as a response to the concern of the Senate President, who deplored the undignified conditions
inflicted on journalists by the media in question. He cited, among other things, the absence of a press card, working without a contract, indecent wages, and the deprivation of social benefits such as membership of social security companies and access to healthcare.
In addition, the Minister in charge of the Media reacted to the question of collaboration between the public media, namely National radio and television (RTNB), Burundi News Agency (ABP) and Publication of Burundian presses (PPB). She pointed out that those media work in a complementary fashion. The ABP, which has a dense network of provincial correspondents, feeds its medium in written form, and sends sound elements in the national and French languages to the national radio station, explained Minister Ndacayisaba. She added that the same agency provides PPB with articles written in French.
Ms Ndacayisaba also announced the forthcoming opening of RTNB’s audio-visual production centers, notably in the provinces of Burunga and Butanyerera, with their respective headquarters in the urban centers of Ngozi and Makamba. The aim is to minimize RTNB’s expenses incurred by its numerous missions within the country, on the one hand, and the need to cover even the farthest reaches of the national territory, on the other.