Agence Burundaise de Presse (ABP)

The Agence Burundaise de Presse (ABP) is the official government news agency of Burundi, tasked with gathering and disseminating news through a national network of correspondents across all 18 provinces. Founded in 1976, ABP supplies news to Burundi’s state and private outlets, publishes content in French, Kirundi and English (via its English-language portal en.abpinfo.bi), and serves as the primary documentary record of government activity. It functions in close institutional alignment with the Ministry of Communication, Information Technologies and Media.

Media assets

News agency: ABP

Ownership and governance

ABP was established by Presidential Decree No. 100/139 of 25 June 1976 and operates as a public institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Communication and Media (formerly Ministry of Communication, Information Technologies and Media until August 2025). From 19 June 1990, by Decree No. 100/032, ABP became a personalised administration, a Burundian legal status granting limited operational autonomy while remaining attached to the state administration.

Governance is centralised. The agency is overseen by a board of directors appointed by the President of the Republic on the recommendation of the Minister in charge of Communication. Day-to-day operations are managed by a Director-General supported by deputies responsible for various administrative and editorial functions.

The current Director-General is Nicolas Barajingwa, in post since 11 July 2019. A member of the ruling CNDD-FDD party, Barajingwa took over from Télésphore Bigirimana, the former SNR (intelligence service) spokesperson who had led ABP since January 2016. Bigirimana was arrested in October 2020 following an audit by the General State Inspectorate that accused him and four other senior figures of embezzling funds from the agency since 2013, allegedly diverting around BIF 20 million per month through a microfinance account by inflating declared salaries. Four of the accused were released; Bigirimana was reportedly transferred to Bururi prison and remained in detention well into 2021, with local observers describing his continued imprisonment as politically motivated. The case has not produced public reform of ABP’s internal financial controls. As of mid-2021, the agency had no dedicated head of finance (the Director-General handled finances directly) even as the agency’s budget reportedly more than doubled that year, prompting unanswered questions from at least one board member.

The 2025–2026 political reshuffle has reshaped the wider institutional environment in which ABP operates. On 5 August 2025, Nestor Ntahontuye (formerly Minister of Finance) was named Prime Minister, replacing Gervais Ndirakobuca, who was elected President of the Senate. The same day, the cabinet was restructured and the number of ministries reduced from 15 to 13. Gabby Bugaga, a former RTNB journalist most recently in charge of logistics at the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), was appointed Minister of Communication and Media, replacing Léocadie Ndacayisaba, who steered the 2024 press law reform and now sits in the Senate. The renaming of the ministry, from “Communication, Information Technologies and Media” to simply “Communication and Media”, signals the transfer of the digital economy portfolio to the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Digital Economy.

Source of funding and budget

Although ABP’s founding decree allows for a hybrid funding model, including both public subsidies and self-generated revenue through content sales and consultancy, the agency remains overwhelmingly dependent on state financing. There are no publicly available reports on the agency’s own-source revenue, nor evidence of significant income from commercial services in recent years; financial transparency remains limited, and the unresolved questions raised by the 2020 embezzlement investigation continue to cast a shadow over the agency’s accounts.

In 2019, ABP received BIF 756 million (US$ 430,000), representing nearly 80% of its operational budget. In 2021, state support increased to BIF 900 million (US$ 450,000), reflecting modest budgetary growth. According to the 2023–2024 national budget, ABP was allocated BIF 805 million (US$ 281,000), a notable decrease in both nominal and real terms, attributable to wider fiscal constraints and currency depreciation.

For the 2025–2026 fiscal year, on 24 June 2025, President Ndayishimiye promulgated Law No. 1/12 fixing the General Budget of the Republic of Burundi. Total expenditure was set at BIF 5,258.6 billion (up roughly 10% on the previous year), with a projected deficit of BIF 436.9 billion. A revised finance law presented to Parliament in December 2025 raised total expenditure to BIF 5,371.9 billion and narrowed the deficit to BIF 367.9 billion. The 2025–2026 budget environment also reflects significant institutional reforms: the number of ministries was reduced from 15 to 13, and provincial administration was reorganised, with implications for the chain of oversight over public agencies including state media.

Editorial independence

ABP functions as a government-aligned news outlet, with editorial content closely reflecting official narratives. The agency routinely reports on the activities of government authorities; provincial correspondents act primarily as conduits for state messaging rather than as independent journalists. Critics describe ABP as a de facto public-relations arm of the state rather than an impartial news source. The fact that the current Director-General is a member of the ruling CNDD-FDD reinforces this alignment.

Despite having a set of internal regulations, including Staff Regulations, Internal Rules, and a Procedural Manual, there is no statutory safeguard ensuring editorial independence. Burundi lacks a legal framework guaranteeing the agency’s autonomy from political interference.

The country’s press regime was overhauled by Law No. 21 of 12 July 2024, which revised the 2018 press law. The 2024 reform partially decriminalised press offences, notably eliminating custodial sentences for offences such as insults and “harmful allegations”, and introduced fines ranging from BIF 500,000 to BIF 1,500,000. The new law also formally recognised online press and community radio for the first time and enshrined journalists’ rights to an employment contract, decent salary and social benefits. In practice, however, the law preserves vague offence categories and has not changed the operating environment for state media.

Ahead of the 5 June 2025 legislative and local elections, won by the ruling CNDD-FDD with 96.5% of the vote and every elected national assembly seat, the National Communication Council (CNC), chaired since mid-2024 by Espérance Ndayizeye, adopted a Code of Conduct for Media during the 2025 Electoral Period. The Code prohibited the publication of partial results without CENI’s approval and was widely criticised by opposition parties and press freedom organisations as restrictive. A coalition of media outlets coordinated election coverage, reportedly funded by the Ministry of Communication, Information Technologies and Media, a configuration in which ABP, as the official news agency, served as a primary distribution channel for state-aligned election content.

The Observatoire de la Presse du Burundi (OPB) serves as a general media watchdog but exerts no meaningful oversight over ABP’s editorial direction. No independent body monitors ABP’s content, governance, or adherence to journalistic standards. Reporters Without Borders documented an upsurge in violence against journalists in the run-up to the 2025 vote, and Burundi fell 17 places in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index to 125th of 180, returning the country to a “very serious” press freedom situation.

On 14 February 2026, President Évariste Ndayishimiye assumed the rotating chairmanship of the African Union for the year. ABP serves as the primary news-agency producer of state-distributed content covering the AU presidency and Burundi’s ongoing diplomatic framing of an “aggression by Rwanda.”

AI and digital policy

No publicly available AI policy, content provenance commitment (e.g. C2PA), or formal disclosure framework for AI-generated content has been identified for ABP. The agency operates two web portals, the French-language abpinfo.bi and the English-language en.abpinfo.bi, plus a Facebook page and an X account (@ABPInfos). Its English portal regularly redistributes Xinhua content via the AMSP/CGTN syndication channel, making ABP a recurring conduit for Chinese state-media narratives within Burundi’s information ecosystem. There is no public statement on AI use in newsroom workflows, automated translation, or synthetic-media disclosure.

April 2026