|
By Vision Reporter
President Yoweri Museveni has threatened to take serious action against radio broadcasters who tell lies and incite the public.
“I must tell you that we are beginning to think in a different direction,” the President told owners and managers of radio and television stations in Sheraton Hotel on Friday night.
“We did not shed out blood for this kind of anarchy of the radios. We will come out with something very serious.”
Speaking at the first annual presidential dinner of the National Association of Broadcasters, an angry Museveni accused the electronic media of not living up to their mission.
“I am surprised to hear that your motto is: to inform, educate and entertain. I was not under that impression,” he told representatives of the 160 radios and 40 television stations in Uganda.
“Maybe you omitted some words, like: to lie. You rarely inform. You rarely educate. You entertain, yes. But you mostly lie and incite. I have so much evidence to prove all this.”
The President decried the lack of rules and regulations in the industry. “You talk about competition. Competing in what? In telling lies or elaborating the truth? What are the rules of the game? If the rules are there, they should be observed.”
It was tiresome to keep on responding to lies, he said. “You waste a lot of time. Somebody tells a lie and you must answer it. Yet we have a lot of work to do”.
He cited some of the issues ignored by the media, yet crucial for the country, as electricity, roads, the railway to Kenya and Tanzania, the broadband Internet connection, peace and vocational training.
He also elaborated on the long road to recovery since 1986, when the economy was dominated by three words: magendo (smuggling), kibanda (black market) and kusammula (speculation, hoarding).
“After minimum recovery was achieved in 1996, we embarked on another mission of human resource development… On the side of the budget we have achieved reasonable self-sufficiency,” he said.
Describing the problems of the radio stations in Uganda, the President referred to two quotes from the Bible: “When they ate and got satisfied, they forgot” and “The writing on the wall read: You have been weighed and found wanting”.
The President also touched on the kingdoms, explaining that he had restored the cultural institutions at the time to keep alive the good aspects of African culture.
“The reason I supported the cultural institutions was that I thought they could play a role in sustaining the positive parts of our culture. I thought they would form a council and work with us.”
On a request from the broadcasters to be granted a tax holiday, Museveni said he could only consider that if the radio stations did a good job and engaged in giving real information.
At the end of his speech, the President announced that the Government had launched a campaign against corruption in local governments.
“Very soon you will hear about quite a number of casualties. The NRM works like a hunter. We put out our nets and the animals fall into the net.”
A stern Museveni warned that the time for district leaders to divert money from the central Government was over.
“Ever since we started decentralisation, we have been sending massive amounts of money to the districts. A lot of this money suffered ‘nyam nyam’. Very soon you will hear some stories.”
Earlier, Francis Babu, the chairman of the Association of Broadcasters, said the broadcasting industry employs about 5,000 people. He acknowledged that monitoring all the broadcasters was a challenge, and that some talk shows engage in unethical behaviour.
At the same time, he attacked the Government for sending low-quality debaters to their talk shows who fail to put across the Government position.
Published on: Saturday, 15th August, 2009
|
