By Gibril MS Jassey
The minister of Information and Communication Infrastructure, Honourable Demba Ali Jawo, has said the Gambia will soon have private television stations.
Mr Jawo, a prominent journalist and advocate of media freedom in the country during the former government under president Jammeh, made this revelation during a consultative meeting with the operators of the broadcast media in the country at his office in Kanifing recently.
“I can see there are lots of private radio stations in the country so now what we need is private TV stations,” says DA Jawo.
“Currently, according to official information from PURA, the country now has 25 commercial radio stations. As you can see even GRTS is invited to this acquaintance meeting so that we can familiarize ourselves with each other as members of the media fraternity. This new government has a great regard for the media and we are ready to work with all of you,” minister Jawo assured the broadcast media executives.
“We want to have a vibrant media that can work collectively with this new government. We want to create a level playing ground for all broadcast media practitioners and those days are long gone when journalists will be called upon to come to explain whatever they said or broadcast to the State Intelligent Services (SIS).”
Also speaking at the meeting, the acting chairperson of the newly formed Broadcast Association of the Gambia, Madam Ndey Bakureh, informed the honourable minister that the association was recently established and they are working on the modality to regularize its registration.
The meeting was also attended by the Permanent Secretary of MOICI, Lamin Camara.
