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, which decides about the key staff appointments. In 2019, Jean Robert Elmut Moutsinga Boulingui, formerly head of Radio Gabon who had 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.
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 10 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 latest publicly available data.
Editorial independence
AGP in its 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. AGP limits itself to only publishing a minimum amount of information as a way to avoid controversy, according to journalists covering Gabon.
In recent years, tensions between the staff at AGP and the agency’s management have occurred more often. In September 2023, the staff at AGP went on strike accusing the station’s management of poor transparency over its finances as well as numerous editorial coverage-related pressures.
No domestic statute and no oversight or assessment mechanism to validate the editorial independence of the agency have been identified.
September 2023