Opposition parties have continued to criticise Communication Minister, Jean Pierre Biyiti Bi Essam, for maintaining a ban on a slot devoted for political party propaganda on the state radio and television.

Dubbed 'Political Forum', the programme was suspended at the eve of the July, 22, 2007, twin elections. Since then, the Minister has not ordered for the restart of the programme.

Recently, the SDF, the NUDP and the CDU parties wrote to the General Manager of CRTV, Amadou Vamoulke, expressing disappointment that the programme was not going on.

He wrote back to them, stating that only the Minister of Communication was competent to order the start of the slot.The parties later sent a letter to the Minister but received no reply. The Minister later received the SDF Communications Officer, Beatrice Annembom Monju, Theophile Y. Moyo of the CDU, and Talba of the NUDP in his office.

According to Annembom, the Minister asked them to fax him the letter they earlier sent to him. She said they did so immediately and they have not received any reaction from him since then.

She said the Minister's attitude runs counter to the spirit of freedom of expression as provided for by the 1990 law on mass communications.She said Biyiti Bi Essam was contradicting the Ministerial decision of November 28, 2001 signed by the former Communications Minister, Jacques Fame Ndongo, which created the programme.