Crippled by crisis in NW, SW: CENPA urges Biya to create special fund for dying English language newspapers.

This call was made yesterday in Ebolowa, South West Region, by Ngah Christian Mbipgo, President of the Cameroon English Language Newspaper Publishers Association, CENPA.

This was during the opening of a two-day workshop currently underway at Bengo Hotel. The workshop, holding under the theme ‘Rescuing the dying Anglophone print media’, ends today.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, the president of CENPA, Kristian Ngah Christian, who is also publisher of The Guardian Post, decried the fact that the government seems to be looking away while English language newspapers are going down the drain.

“While it is an established fact that the media industry in Cameron is facing numerous challenges, the case of English language newspapers is peculiar in that we lack sponsors. It is regrettable that Anglophones, by their nature, don’t have the culture of promoting media organs,” Ngah said regrettably.

He regretted the fact that “most of the English language newspaper Publishers, already seriously affected by the armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions, can barely afford the high publication cost”.

“The disturbing situation of English language newspapers has further been compounded by the economic downturn caused by the armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions, high cost of printing materials, lack of sponsors and the advent of the social media, which has seriously affected sales of printed newspaper copies,” he disclosed.

He recalled that prior to the crisis, English language newspapers used to have advertising jobs from companies like Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, PAMOL and other well established private companies in these two regions.

Ngah, nonetheless, was disheartened by the fact that “the crisis has crippled these companies, making it difficult for them to advertise in English language newspapers”.

“English language newspapers have, because of the crisis, lost more than 80% of their readership in the North West and South West Regions,” he declared.

Need for special fund for English language newspapers

It was in the light of the foregoing that Kristian Ngah Christian, on behalf of CENPA, called for the creation of a special fund for English language newspapers.

“We would therefore not be seen to be asking too much, if we plead with the President of the Republic, through His Excellency, the Minister of Communication, to create a Special Fund for English language newspapers,” he said.

“We remember that Government created a special fund for small and medium sized enterprises, when Cameroon was hit by COVID-19,” he noted.

He also recalled that since the advent of the Anglophone crisis that has escalated into an armed conflict, English language newspapers have demonstrated maturity and professionalism in covering the more than six-year crisis. If this was not the case, Ngah noted, the English language newspapers may have taken the road of Radio Mille Collines, whose role in the Rwandan genocide cannot be overstated.

Meanwhile, presiding over the opening of the workshop on behalf of the Minister of Communication, the South Regional Delegate of Communication, Beko’o B’evina Marguerite Solange, also recalling the challenges being faced by the print media, causing its decline, said English language newspapers “are most hit by this decline of interest in publications and other crises that the sector is facing”.

She noted that the workshop “is a great move to analyse the current state of affairs and draw conclusions on what can be done in order to rescue the agonising the English print media in Cameroon ”.

Gov’t ready to stand by English language newspapers

The Regional Delegate expressed government’s readiness to stand by English language newspaper Publishers.

“The government of Cameroon, through the Ministry of Communication, is ever ready to stand by the side of the English language newspaper sector to help in resolving this crisis that the sector is going through,” the delegate said.

“The wish of the Ministry of Communication is to see the English language newspaper sector revamped…,” Beko’o added.

She appreciated CENPA for having joined the government in its fight against COVID-19, by donating anti-COVID-19 kits to media houses in the country.

It should be noted that the workshop has as goal to help English language print media organs, already badly hit by the armed conflict in the North West and the South West Regions, and other national and international economic downturns, to seek alternative means of sustaining their publications.

Some 30 English language newspaper Publishers are attending the Ebolowa workshop. CENPA, years back, also assisted government’s efforts in the back-to-school drive in the North West and South West Regions, by donating school kits to pupils and students in all the 13 Divisions of the crisis-hit Anglophone Regions.

Still in line with helping government to resolve the crisis in the two English-speaking Regions, the association, in 2019, organised a seminar on crisis reporting and peace-building, for 100 media practitioners from North West, South West, West, Centre and Littoral Regions.