CBS closure breaks Mengo’s back

Cornered on the political front, Buganda officials now accuse government - which owes the cultural institution Shs8 billion in rent arrears for its premises such as the home of the Supreme Court in Mengo - of deliberately suffocating the cultural institution.

The Buganda kingdom has run broke and implementation of its flagship development projects have stalled, Saturday Monitor can reveal.
Mengo officials say since government took the Central Broadcasting Service radio off air five months ago, their ability to reach out and mobilise people and cash has been impaired.

The kingdom’s business of tapping money from willing donors, locally and internationally, through sale of ‘Buganda certificates’ has slumped by 33 per cent, according to Ms Joy Mukalazi, the secretary to the Annual Donation Fund - the formal name of the fundraising.

Each of the certificates, which buyers hold with prestige as testimony of their contribution and allegiance to Buganda, go for between Shs1, 000 and Shs10 million making it affordable across different income groups.

Open sale
The sale is open to anyone and the kingdom, last year, raked nearly Shs200 million from the business, previously aggressively promoted by the largely Buganda kingdom-owned CBS radio.

“The (earnings from the certificate) sales have dropped from at least Shs6 million to less than Shs2 million per week,” said Ms Mukalazi. “We used to mobilise people using the radio and direct them to sales points of the certificate, which is very hard now.”

The Broadcasting Council closed CBS and revoked the radio’s license on September 10, last year accusing its presenters of breaching minimum broadcasting standards and inciting that month’s bloody pro-Kabaka riots in and around Kampala.

Matters are not helped that the radio, which had 150-strong staff, was a profitable trading arm of the kingdom, generating a monthly gross income in excess of Shs1 billion, a board member of the radio, who preferred not to be named to freely discuss the sensitive business information, said.

Cornered on the political front, Buganda officials now accuse government - which owes the cultural institution Shs8 billion in rent arrears for its premises such as the home of the Supreme Court in Mengo - of deliberately suffocating the cultural institution.

“The radio’s closure does not affect the kingdom alone; the private sector is crying too,” Mr Peter Mayiga, the kingdom’s information and cabinet affairs minister, said.

He added: “This decision is aimed at detaching the kingdom from its people (with the masterminds) forgetting that several developmental projects are being crippled.”

The impaired outreach of authorities in Mengo to mobilise was manifest in the comparatively lower turn up of subjects for the New Year (Enkuuka y’omwaka) festivities at Mengo presided over by Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi.
In days after the occasion, a government minister who spoke to us in confidence said “there are feelers” the closure of CBS is working, first by choking mass mobilisation and then the financial squeeze “which we believe will eventually force the kingdom to capitulate” to state demands.

Already Mengo is struggling to muster financing for this year’s Shs19.2 billion budget and the kingdom’s treasurer, Ms Mukasa Naggawa, says they may run a “deficit budget if things don’t change”. Yet a favourable swing appears quite distant – at least for now. Why? The government last month set a dozen tough terms including relocation from Bulange - the seat of the Mengo establishment – as preconditions for CBS to resume operations, even temporarily.

But Buganda decision-makers reject the provisos, casting wide the chance for the radio to re-open in the wake of unproductive months of talking between proprietors and selected government ministers.

Mr Aaron Mukwaya, a political science professor at Makerere University, however, says the power rivalry for which Buganda is being punished by the ruling government manifests the lack of institutionalised debate and resolution of conflict where power centres are “personalised”.

“It’s not just the closure of CBS that is affecting the kingdom’s finances but various aspects of the strained relations with the central government that has completely stifled kingdoms,” he said, adding: “An operative Parliament should have already discussed this matter rather than leave it for individuals, the Kabaka and the President, to solve. But government will require CBS during campaigns to reach voters in Baganda.”