‘Teranga FM was closed due to administrative procedure’

Teranga FM a community radio station located in Sinchu Alagie village in the Kombo North District of the West Coast Region was temporarily closed down in mid-January this year due to “some administrative procedures,” if the words of Mr. Alagie Cham, Minister of Information and Communication Infrastructure, are anything to go by.

Established in 2009, the radio was ordered to cease operations in January 2011, a move sources believed was linked to the radio’s daily review, in the main Gambian languages, of the news published in the local newspapers.

The FM radio station came back on air on 14th February 2011.

Minister Cham, who was responding to a question by Hon. Pa Jallow, member for Jarra Central as to what led to the closure of the radio station, during the Question and Answer session at the National Assembly on Tuesday, said “the reason for the gap in the radio’s broadcast was to make certain that some administrative procedures are in place.”

“The Management of Teranga FM wasted no time in putting in place those administrative procedures and, as a result, resumed broadcasting on 14th February 2011,” Cham told deputies.

Teranga FM’s review of the independent press generated a lot of attention from the public, most of whose members rely on it to get the news, which is normally broadcast in Wollof and Mandinka, the two main local languages.

Although the radio has resumed broadcasting, sources said its review of news carried in the independent press has been suspended.