Uganda Peoples Congress ‘UPC’ party has called upon the private media owners for constructive engagements and dialogue with government that seeks an amicable solution with focus on a percentage share of government adverts between public and private media to remove the on going impasse.
While addressing the press on Wednesday,head of communication at UPC Mr Muzeyi Faizo acknowledged that there is a fresh fight between the private media houses and government stemming from the presidential directive that gives UBC and Vision Group total monopoly to all government adverts. He said that by and large, the media industry gets its main income from advertisements and the government is the biggest reliable employer with a huge volume of adverts. “This presidential
directive may directly up crippling or killing off the private media industry that is struggling to survive in business.
The private media has evolved and practically covering the whole country. A lot of investments have been put in establishing media houses and offering endless employment opportunities to the journalists who are now in gainful employment”,he said.
He added”These deserve government Adverts to keep them afloat in business which guards them against business closure and to avoid the escalation of
unemployment levels that is becoming an impediment to our anticipated prosperity for all”
UPC takes note that most of government adverts cut across the country and to be a monopoly of UBC and Vision Group of companies, cannot effectively cover the entire market. A case in point is the experience of the out-break of covid-19 pandemic which called for concerted efforts of both public and private media to keep our citizenıy up to date with covid-19 guidelines and indeed, they did a commendable job that saved many lives of our people.
UPC discouraged current private media stand off so that they can dialogue with government which will lead to president Museveni to rescind his presidential directive.
UPC also stated that it’s a very unfortunate experience for local government when government failed to
hold both Women Councils and Local Council (LC) 1 and 2 elections ostensibly due to lack resources. In the Party’s Press Statement of July 19, 2023, UPC made a special appeal to government to come out boldly and mobilise the necessary resources for holding the delayed women council and local council 1 elections. Government by seeking a six months extension for LC1 in office as scouting for financial resources answers part of our prayers and it is a move in the right direction.
“Our continuous plea is that let the Government handle this matter with the
utmost attention, walk the talk and exhibit goodwill in handling pertinent issues like local council elections”,he said.
