Committee report uncovers rot at UBC

Information minister Frank Tumwebaze (right) receives the UBC review report from the chairman of the UBC review committee, Dr Peter Mwesige in Kampala. PHOTO BY ALEX ESAGALA

KAMPALA- The Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) is saddled with debt, operates in breach of laws and best corporate governance practices and requires an urgent overhaul, according to an ad hoc committee that has been investigating the institution.

Appointed by Information minister Frank Tumwebaze in August, the seven-member committee chaired by Dr Peter Mwesige found that UBC remunerates its staff poorly; defaults on remitting their pension contributions; most employees lack employment contracts; while some board members lack required skills to provide effective oversight.

As a result, the board “does not appear to have a common understanding of the public mandate of the corporation”, including inherent confusion on whether the media house is a state/government broadcaster or a propaganda platform for the ruling NRM party.

“The mind-set at UBC does not support most of the values of public broadcasting,” the reviewers concluded in a reported presented to minister Tumwebaze in Kampala yesterday.

Its detailed findings were shared with the media. The minister said “Cabinet is eager” to consider it and prepare a white paper as proof of the government’s commitment to implement its recommendations.

“There is no contest that UBC has issues,” Mr Tumwebaze said, adding: “This report will be my guide as we start our revamp of UBC...UBC should be the embodiment of professional ethics and virtue.”

These promises, better if implemented, should sound soothing music to the ears of employees of the public broadcaster who have witnessed scandal after scandal, including illegal sale of the institution’s land, or endured the frustration of working with derelict equipment against stiff competition.

The ad hoc committee found evidence of the rot in blighted radio and television infrastructure, which rendered parts of the city just a few kilometres away from the studios unable to receive quality transmission.

The corporation’s archives, largely in the form of pneumatic tapes, urgently require restoration while UBC transmission and studio equipment are housed in easy-to-breach temporary shelters.

At the report launch yesterday, Dr Mwesige, who is also the executive director of the Africa Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), implored the government to implement their findings in a holistic manner because “we don’t want to be part of a process of pouring public money into supporting a government or ruling party mouthpiece”. Public money, he said, should support a public broadcaster.

The concerns follows findings that a mismatch between provisions of the UBC Act and the belatedly passed broadcasting standards had encumbered the full transformation of the entity, formerly called Uganda Television or UTV, into an independent public broadcaster.

ACME monitored the Ugandan media’s coverage of the 2016 general elections and reported, in confirmation of prior complaints of bias against UBC by Opposition politicians, that the broadcaster gave a disproportionately favourable coverage to the ruling NRM and its flag bearer Yoweri Museveni.

Such a lopsided conduct places UBC far from its envisaged role as an accountable tax payer-funded public broadcaster serving a public interest.

“Independence should not mean immunity from oversight because if government puts a billion shillings in UBC we must demand for it,” minister Tumwebaze said.

The committee commended UBC, among other things, for implementing sign language translation of its news bulletin and broadcasting significantly diverse local content.