The Pan African Radio, Africa No. 1, has lost its signal and is no longer being received in Gabon and elsewhere in Africa since Wednesday, PANA learnt from the radio's management in Libreville. According to the daily 'L'Union', the satellite operator Eutelsat might have stopped its services to the station over an estimated 200 million CFA francs in arrears of payment. The station has been experiencing serious financial problems since 2001, especially after Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Japanese Radio NHK stop shortwave broadcasting. The arrival of Libyan partners had restored hope among the workers, who are now threatened by the ongoing political crisis in Libya.
The crisis, marked by the freezing of Libyan assets and the Western military intervention in the north African country, has impacted negatively on the station, which has a total debt of 1.2 billion CFA francs, according to the Management. A representative of the Libyan partners in Gabon, Abubaker Ali, the salaries of the station's journalists were paid only till the end of March 2011. Ali said that the crisis in Libya prevented Libyan-African Investment Portfolio (LAP) from having access to the required funds. Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting became the majority shareholder in Africa No. 1 with 52 per cent of the capital, the Gabonese government owns 35 per cent and the Gabonese private sector 13 per cent. The station started broadcasting in 1981.(Afrique Jet) ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Order your WRTH 2011: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2011 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
