President Museveni is set to meet the leadership of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) on August 10, 2023, to discuss an amicable way on how advertising funds are distributed across both private and state-owned media houses.
The meeting follows NAB’s nationwide boycott of the coverage of government activities in protest of a contentious directive by President Museveni that ring-fences advertising funds to state-owned Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) and the New Vision, living out privately owned media houses.
Joseph Beyanga, the NAB’s Secretary General, conveyed the association’s stance that, they would not be giving coverage to government activities until the misunderstanding is resolved.
“The tentative date set for the meeting is August 10th, but in the meantime, it doesn’t mean that the ban is off, the ban is still on. We are saying no coverage for government activities. We are talking about communication from the cabinet, from the media centre through which government communicates,” Beyanga said.
Beyanga added that what will continue is emergency communication in the event of an outbreak and that there shall be no free airtime considerations on radio, online, and TV to any government official.
The directive from the Secretary to the Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Ramathan Ggoobi, threatened to dismiss all accounting officers who fail to comply with the directive.
