Friday, September 07, 2007

Central African Republic: UN backed radio strives for national coverage

Text of report by state-owned Central African Republic radio on 5 September

Now it’s over to Athanase Karayenga of Fondation Hirondelle [Geneva-based NGO], representing his colleague at Radio Ndeke Luka [Bangui FM station backed by UN and Fondation Hirondelle].

Athanase Karayenga talked with the communications minister about Ndeke Luka’s plan to broadcast to the whole country. At the end of the meeting, Mr Karayenga answered questions from [reporter] Ruben Ngoya.

[Karayenga] I discussed Radio Ndeke Luka’s plans with the communications minister. We have received two directives from the EU, one of Radio Ndeke Luka’s donors, asking us to rework the statutes so that Ndeke Luka becomes a Central African national judicial entity. We hope to complete this by the end of the year. It is possible.

The second directive is to cover the whole country, via shortwave, in the not-too-distant future. These are requests from the European Commission.

I met the communications minister yesterday, when I was in Boali. I met friends at ICDI, a shortwave [religious] radio station broadcasting from Boali, and which could broadcast our programmes for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon, every day.
(Source: Radio Centrafrique, Bangui, in French 1800 gmt 5 Sep 07 via BBC Monitoring/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)