The Taraba Government says it is to set aside special funds to train its media personnel on digitisation.

Its Commissioner for Information, Mr Aminu Jika, told  newsmen on Saturday in Jalingo that the idea was to ensure that the workers were trained on modern media practices as characterised by digitisation.

“Our major challenge in the state’s media houses is ensuring effective transition from analogue to digital broadcast through training and getting qualified personnel on board by 2011.

“Although digitisation will ensure a quality broadcast, it does not exist in a vacuum as trained personnel will be needed to drive it.

“To this end, we have made a case to the state government to approve a special media training fund different from civil service training fund for the training of our media personnel,’’ Jika said.

He said the essence was to fast track the training of personnel in the state’s media houses and to ensure that training was not hindered by civil service bureaucracy and bottlenecks.

Jika said the state government had already put in place a target of three years to train all its media personnel.

Meanwhile, the commissioner has called on the federal government to speed up work at the NTA booster station on the Mambila Plateau to provide Nigerian signals to people living in the border area with Cameroun.

He said that Nigerians in the border area were continuously bombarded with broadcast signals from Cameroun while they had no access to signals from Nigeria.

“As a state sharing border with the Republic of Cameroon, we receive broadcast signals from that country and this to a large extent poses a challenge to Nigeria.

“This is because if our people keep receiving broadcast signals from other counties, their loyalty and commitment would diminish in no time because perceptions are shaped by information received.

“This is a big challenge to Nigeria that needs to be tackled head-on without delay.

“Although the NTA is working on the establishment of a booster station at the Mambila Plateau to broadcast signals to those at the border areas, there is a need to speed up the action.

“On our part, we are trying within our limited resources to contribute our quota to address the situation.

“We hope that by the first quarter of 2011, some of the things we have set in motion will make a difference in the situation’’ Jika said.

He said that effort was being made to ensure that signals of the state radio station became stronger within the next few months, adding that equipment had been procured to establish a television booster station in the area.