The establishment of the Commission for the examination and validation of the Declaration of press companies of Senegal, which is shaking up the media landscape in Senegal, threatens to create dissension between the Ministry of Communication, telecommunications and digital (Mctn), the National Audiovisual Regulatory Council (Cnra) and within the Mctn staff, in particular certain close collaborators of Minister Alioune Sall.
Indeed, collaborators of the minister have, it seems, begun to express their dissatisfaction with the way in which the process of regularization of press organs is being carried out by their department. They find that the supervisory authority is in the process of assuming rights that are not recognized to it, in particular by the Press Code. These people say they are comforted by remarks made by the president of the CNRA, in a letter addressed to his supervisory minister. The said letter would also have pointed out the fact that “decree No. 024462 of October 1, 2024 establishing and establishing the organization and operation of the Commission for the examination and validation of the Declaration of press companies in Senegal violates the Code of the press.
The letter from the Cnra mainly focused on the audiovisual media aspect, but the ministry agents, who expressed their feelings, did not hide the fact that the situation is not better with regard to the written press, where similar problems arise. Everyone notes that the ministry wanted to give the regulatory commission “exorbitant powers which place it above the press regulatory bodies that are the Cnra and the Cored”. If it is obvious that Cored seems to be disinterested in the fate of the press organs and the journalists who work there, the Cnra, for its part, seems determined not to allow the few powers granted to it by law to be eroded.
In particular, they support art 2 of the decree, which provides that the files validated by the commission are submitted to the Mctn so that it issues a certificate with a unique identification number, equivalent to legal recognition. For these officials, in doing so, this decree overrides the powers of the Cnra and violates the provisions of the Press Code. The Cnra, in the letter cited above, had also made a point of recalling the said provisions by saying: “The ministry responsible for Communication and the regulatory body are the only structures authorized to intervene in the legal recognition of communication companies audiovisual.
The ministry has the prerogative to grant authorization, after assent from the regulatory body. As for the regulatory body, it is entrusted with the missions of examining authorization requests, giving a compliant opinion, developing specifications for actors in the audiovisual communication value chain and pre-establishing and to sign agreements with publishers, broadcasters and distributors.”
The Cnra letter, which the ministry’s services leaked, therefore recommends that Mr. Alioune Sall “return order no. 024462 of October 1, 2024 establishing and establishing the organization and functioning of the Examination Commission and validation of the Declaration of press companies of Senegal or to resume it or to suspend its application. In addition to this, the audiovisual regulator suggests “authorizing press companies whose agreements with the regulatory body have been signed, in accordance with article 147 of the Press Code”, which provides: “ The Minister responsible for Communication automatically issues an operating license to publishers of already existing audiovisual communication services, subject to the signing of a new agreement with the regulatory body. It remains to be seen whether the Minister of Communication and his services, who have already gone quite far in their enterprise of destruction, will be able to ease off before the bronca reaches significant scale.
The DAILY
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