Namayanja reorganises information ministry
Information Minister Rose Namayanja (L) and her predecessor, Ms Mary Karooro Okurut, who is now the minister of Gender, during the handover of office recently. PHOTO by geoffrey sseruyange
KAMPALA
Information Minister Rose Namayanja has drawn a new programme with the aim of closely monitoring what the media houses in the country publish.
The Daily Monitor has learnt that a meeting was held with ministry employees on Friday where Ms Namayanja directed that a team be created to “monitor and evaluate all the work of the different media houses”.
A source that attended the meeting quoted the minister saying: “Since I was appointed the minister of Information, I have realised that there is need for enhanced government visibility and information dissemination to the public.”
Minister speaks
When asked yesterday whether a group to monitor media houses would not act as a spy team for the government, Ms Namayanja said: “It is not spying but scanning in order to come up with responses to queries raised.” “This is actually in line with the government communication strategy which states that there should be an issues management team,” Ms Namayanja said.
Our intention is actually to rebrand and to enhance government visibility,” the Information minister added.
The meeting is said to have agreed that since most of the media houses were portraying the government in negative light, a research team be created to “enhance access to the media targeting programmes that portray a positive government image”.
