Prime Minister – Head of Government, Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute has
presided over the October session of the cabinet meeting at the Star
Building in Yaounde.
The Meeting began with a minute of silence in honour of victims of
the Gouache Mudslide in Bafoussam; focused on the need to promote
national consciousness in the use of the social media was top in the
agenda.
The Minister of Communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi in a presentation
on the role of the media in promoting consciousness, highlighted the
need for Cameroonians to engage with the media in a responsible manner.
Communication channels should be able to set the agenda, for
political and informed debates to guide the actions of citizens for the
preservation of peace, unity and stability in the country.
However, the social media has diverted the media’s role of education,
information and entertainment to a propagation of all sorts of
unfiltered information including hate and violent speeches, tribalism
amongst other vices.
The Communication boss reminded media organs both public and private,
of their primary role of promoting media consciousness, especially at a
time when the country is faced with various challenges and is building
on its diversity and uniqueness.
He said, “The mission of the press is to educate the population, to
sensitise the population, but some people use the press to do the
contrary… One of our proposals is to make sure that we setup a kind of
framework of specifications and commitments which will be given to all
our press organs, both public or private. Some people are not aware of
the fact that there are regulations. People who use the social media to
introduce messages of hate, tribalism and so on, ignore the fact that
they can be pursued by the law”.
Earlier in the meeting, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Gabriel Mbaïrobe expounded on the situation and prospects
of the Cocoa and Coffee sector in Cameroon. He decried the drop in the
price of cocoa. He indicated that Cameroon now produces three hundred
and thirty thousand tons far below the 600 thousand tons projected for
2020.
The Minister explained that some measures have been put in place to
increase productivity, some of which include the application of good
treatment of crops.
He said government has put in place a programme to train farmers in
order to ensure the application of good agricultural practices in a bid
to revamp the once lucrative sector. Cocoa is one of Cameroon major
export crops beside banana.
In the area of Coffee production, the Minister explained that
Government has to contain with local transformation because prices are
fixed at the international level.
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