Agence Gabonaise de Presse (AGP) is Gabon’s national news agency service, which also publishes a newspaper, Gabon Matin.
Media assets
News agency: Agence Gabonaise de Presse
Print: Gabon Matin
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
AGP is a government-owned agency under the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy that decides about key staff appointments. In 2019, Jean Robert Elmut Moutsinga Boulingui, formerly head of Radio Gabon and who held many positions in various ministerial cabinets (notably in Communication and the Prime Minister’s Office), was appointed provisional administrator of AGP and Gabon Matin by the Communication Minister Guy Maixent Mamiaka. Three years later, he was replaced by Sébastien Ntoutoum Bekale, who had also held several positions in the state administration. In March 2023, Bekale was named ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. Nick Jocelyn Blampain Fouba took his seat as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Source of funding and budget
AGP is fully dependent on funding from the government. In recent years, the agency has been faced with painful financial problems as the government delayed (sometimes for ten months or so) payment of the salaries of the AGP staff. The state subsidy for the agency has been massively cut in the past decade from XAF 1.5bn (US$ 2.6m) to some XAF 200m (US$ 350,000) in 2016, according to the publicly available data. In 2023, the agency had a budget of XAF 697m (US$ 1.17m), higher than in the past, but the agency still reported a deficit, according to media reports.
Editorial independence
AGP’s reporting is openly biased towards the government and the ruling elite, which is the result of the control over the agency exerted through government-made appointments of the editorial staff. According to journalists covering Gabon, AGP limits itself to publishing a minimum amount of information to avoid controversy.
Tensions between the AGP staff and the agency’s management have increased in recent years. In September 2023, the AGP staff went on strike, accusing the station’s management of poor transparency over its finances and numerous editorial coverage-related pressures.
No domestic statute and no oversight or assessment mechanism have been identified to validate the agency’s editorial independence.
July 2024