Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), the sole public broadcaster has expressed concern over the growing number of presidential aspirants saying that station does not have the financial capacity to give equal media coverage to all candidates as directed by court.
While appearing before the Budget committee of Parliament to defend the 3 billion shillings request in the supplementary budget, deputy managing director of UBC Maurice Mugisha said that the Station is financially incapacitated to provide coverage for the scientific campaigns and elections following the growing number of presidential aspirants.
"Our prayer is that we have the least number of presidential candidates. Today (Thursday), 5 were verified and this is already an alarming number. If we go to 10 [candidates] then I will not have a news room to operate because I must cover each candidate wherever they are and provide equal airtime both on radio and television,” Mugisha said.
In 2016, the Supreme Court in its ruling directed that public stations are supposed to give equal coverage to all presidential candidates. This follows an incident where former presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye sued and won a case against UBC for refusing to run his campaign adverts on TV despite receiving payment.
By Thursday, the Electoral commission had cleared 10 presidential aspirants to contest for the top seat in the country.
However, MPs comforted UBC’s Mugisha saying that it is not the mandate of the broadcaster to facilitate for the publicity of candidates and their campaigns urging that parliament has already provided the electoral commission with funds to cater for such media campaigns. Over 20 presidential candidates could be nominated by the EC at Kyambogo University Grounds on 2nd and 3rd of November.
