CENPA pleads on President Biya to create special fund for English Language Newspapers

Members of the Cameroon English Language Newspaper Publishers Association, CENPA, have pleaded with the Head of State, President Paul Biya to create a special fund for English language Newspapers who have been suffering due to the Anglophone Crisis.

They made the plea during the opening of a two-day workshop on August 3, 2023, in Ebolowa.

The workshop was held under the theme ” Rescuing the dying Anglophone Print Media”.

According to the president of CENPA, Ngah Christian Mbipgo, who doubles as Publisher of The Guardian Post newspaper, they have lost their readership in the North West and South West Regions, and most of the companies that used to advertise with them, have been crippled by the crisis which in turn affects them.

” We are barely surviving, that is why we are making a plea to the head of state, to create a special fund to assist the English Language Newspaper,” the CENPA president said.

Ngah Christian went further to say; “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,”.

The South Regional Delegate for Communication, Marguerite Solange Beko’o while presiding over the workshop on behalf of the Minister of Communication said the government is always ready to assist English language print media.

“We hope that, by the end of this two-day workshop, they will be able to come out with solutions that these English language Newspapers are facing,”. She stated.

Some 30 English-language Newspaper publishers attended the workshop.