The government will do its best to build an independent media which can play its rightful role as the Fourth Estate, the Minister in charge of Cabinet Affairs, Protais Musoni, said yesterday. He made the remarks while meeting media development partners to inform them about the current media reforms as well as assessing the areas that need support.It follows a recent approval by the Chamber of Deputies of draft laws that will govern the media fraternity. The laws pave way for self regulation and improvement of the professionalism among media practitioners.The bills that were assessed included access to information, and one regarding the functioning and organization of the Media High Council (MHC).“We want to make sure that everything is done properly. We need our people to be media literate as this will help in the democratic process and peace building in the country”, Musoni said.During the discussions, Ignatius Kabagambe, the coordinator of Rwanda media sector reforms in the Ministry for Cabinet Affairs, made a brief presentation on the status of new reforms and policies that would be based on the rule of law and peaceful development.In an exclusive interview with the British High Commissioner to Rwanda, Benedict Llewellyn-Jones, he noted that the current media sector was taking the right direction, however pointed out the need to learn from others.“You need a vibrant media experience from other countries of the East African Community to have a comprehensive media sector”, he said.On the issue of funding the sector, the UK representative said: “We do support the government, and in the area of media sector we have got a proposal from the government and we need time to understand it”.Collin Haba, the president of Rwanda Journalists Association, pointed that there was need to access the support to initiate the associations’ secretariat that would help to improve and ease the performance of the media in the country.It was discovered that lack of a secretariat was still obstructing the performance of associations since the members are always busy with their own media houses. Musoni further added that next week a team of media experts from Rwanda will have study tour to London based BBC.
