Last week, the Ministry of ICT unveiled what the government calls the National Strategic Communications Committee. It is headed by a man named Simon Kaheru. Ugandans who read Kampala’s main newspapers regularly and use social media must have seen his name.
Long before President Museveni appointed him to head the committee, Mr Kaheru worked at Vision Group, a government media company that publishes Bukedde, New Vision and Weekend Vision, formerly Sunday Vision. At Sunday Vision, he served as a reporter before rising through the ranks to become deputy editor.
When he left Sunday Vision, Mr Kaheru worked in former Vice President Gilbert Bukenya’s office as press secretary. He has also held roles in corporate communications at Coca Cola Beverages-Uganda, starting as public affairs and communications director and then head of public policy and partnerships.
Few will have been surprised by his appointment. As the government has become increasingly unpopular due to human rights violations and repression, it is co-opting individuals who are sitting on the fence either because they are afraid to criticise it or because they benefit from its continued stay in power.
Mr Kaheru occasionally writes opinion articles for the New Vision, and while many of his peers on social media are outspokenly critical of the government over its torture of political opponents and runaway corruption, he remains silent.
On his X page, he reposts followers’ posts for the most part, and many of his reposts are about State House events and President Museveni’s posts. He is probably trying not to bite the hand that feeds him.
The timing of the committee is intriguing. Like the Media Centre before it, the committee has been set up in the run-up to presidential elections.
Many, especially journalists, fear that it may serve as a tool to gag the media. When the government unveiled the Media Centre in 2006, it hired Robert Kabushenga, who was then working for Vision Group in the legal department and was also writing a Museveni-praising weekly column, to head it.
He said its principal duty was “to cause positive and factual awareness of the government in the media.” Mr Kabushenga went to work and caused the deportation of a Canadian journalist named Blake Lambert who was a correspondent for the Economist. President Museveni later appointed him chief executive of Vision Group.
The National Strategic Communications Committee cannot stop stories of torture from circulating when security forces are busy torturing political opponents. Some may even ask whether it is needed at all given that the Media Centre was/is supposed to do what the committee seeks to do.
The committee comes at a time when the government’s image is tainted because of its appalling human rights record and runaway corruption over which the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, was sanctioned by the US and UK governments in 2024.
Junior ICT minister Joyce Ssebugwawo, who commissioned the committee, said it would coordinate and centralise all government communication to promote a more accurate and unified national image.
“The media plays a critical role in shaping how Uganda is perceived both locally and internationally,” Ms Ssebugwawo said, according to the New Vision.
But how the committee is going to address the source of the negative publicity and social media where it spreads like wildfire remains unclear.
Marcella Karekye, the director of the Government Citizen Interaction Centre, a State House outfit, said “every country has problems, but you don’t find them on the front page every day.”
The problem is that she and the head of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID), Odrek Rwabwogo, who is also Mr Museveni’s son-in-law and spoke at the event, seem to be more concerned about the symptoms than the cause of the symptoms.
The National Strategic Communications Committee cannot stop stories of torture from circulating when security forces are busy torturing political opponents. Some may even ask whether it is needed at all given that the Media Centre was/is supposed to do what the committee seeks to do.
If Uganda’s problem is image, the new committee may help. But if the problem is what is causing the image, then Mr Kaheru’s real job may not be communication but hiding the mess. And no amount of spin can wrap torture and corruption in good lighting.
The Media Centre did not succeed; the strategic communications committee will not either. Time is our witness.
🔴 Musaazi Namiti is the Founder and Editorial Director of OJ-UGANDA. He previously led the Africa Desk at Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, worked for Globe Media Asia in Cambodia and writes a widely read column for Uganda’s Sunday Monitor. His work has been quoted by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Jeune Afrique, The Africa Report—not for playing it safe, but for saying what others will not.
Email: musaazinamiti@ojuganda.com
X: @kazbuk