The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, Dr. Aminah Zawedde, has urged Government Communication Officers (GCOF) interim committee members to embrace working in collaboration, stressing that as government mouthpieces, one cannot independently be effective in reaching various audiences.

While opening the GCOF retreat in Moroto on March 19, 2024, the PS told the GCOF interim committee members to take advantage of partnerships starting within government agencies and MDAs.

“Communication is very aggressive, and if you don’t work, you will be narrow. We have to stand up in partnerships and speak in one voice as government,” the PS said.

Citing the great communication performance exhibited through the intergovernmental agency partnership during the NAM and G77+ summits, she tasked the interim committee with planning on launching activities that are going to steer audiences effectively about government projects, policies, and achievements.

The Deputy Director General of Internal Security Organization (ISO), Col. Emmy Katabazi, who was a co-chief guest along with the PS Min. ICT and NG, challenged government communicators to start by changing their mindset so that they are able to effectively do their job as per the government revolutionary goals.

“By working for government, we ought to be revolutionary. You can’t confront big things with a narrow mindset. How will you change the public mindset with a distorted mind?” he stressed.

He added that, as a government officer, one must be robust in identifying national threats and be careful of media manipulation.

Citing Western countries, the DDG emphasized that the role of media is to glorify good things, not bad things.

“That’s where the Western world beats us; they cover their bad and glorify their good, while training our journalists’ negative practice of media,” he added.

The opening of the retreat was graced by different stakeholders in the area, including the RDC, MP, and Ambrose Byoona, CEO of Sanny Bird, who is working with West China Cement Company to establish a multi-trillion-dollar cement factory in Moroto.

In a brief statement to the GCOF members, Byoona said that government communicators must be at the forefront of showing Karamoja to the world.

He said that the cement factory that is being constructed will be the biggest in East Africa, with the capacity to employ over three thousand people. He added that the factory will generally decrease the cost of producing cement in all Ugandan factories by producing clinker, a product used in cement manufacturing, usually imported.

He also said that the cement factory will transform Karamoja through community development programmes that aim to deal with food insecurity and scholarships for at least ten students from the Karamoja region at the university level per year.

Day one of the retreat was crowned by a cultural dinner, which saw government communicators clad in Karamoja attire and participating in the cultural dances as a way to embrace inclusiveness in reaching different populations with effective communication.

The ongoing interim committee GCOF retreat was organized by Min. ICT and NG in partnership with ISO, with the aim of coming up with practical solutions to the challenges faced with government communications.

The Government Communication Officers Forum (GCOF) was formed in 2012 as an initiative of the then-Directorate of Information and National Guidance, formally under the Office of the Prime Minister and currently under the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance.

The forum, which is an umbrella body for the spokespersons, public relations, communication personnel, and all those performing the communication function in Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDA and Local Government) of Uganda, is in its revival moves to functionalize working collaboratively to achieve effective communication of government social, economic, and development initiatives.