Vision Group’s chief executive officer Robert Kabushenga has been elected on a committee to steer the establishment of an umbrella media body to advocate for interests of the media in the EAC region.
Vision Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Kabushenga
The committee chaired by Kabushenga also has other members who include Alphonse Nkusi (Rwanda), Esperance Ndayizeye (Burundi), Dr. Haron Mwangi (Kenya) and Ndimara Tegambwage (Tanzania).
The committee was elected Friday during the just-concluded 6th East African Community/East African Business Council (EAC-EABC) Media Summit at the Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala.
The participants suggested names for the proposed regional body to be referred to as the East African Media Society or East African Media Forum.
The summit was attended by media owners, chief executives and practitioners from the 5 EAC member states. They discussed regional integration and media’s role in promoting integration and collaborating with EAC and EABC.
The practitioners in the resolutions, called on the EAC Secretariat to engage community media in disseminating messages in local languages on fast tracking the EAC integration, as one of the effective ways to reach out to majority of East Africans.
They also called on the EAC secretariat, to regularly engage with media proprietors in the region to encourage them to commit adequate resources to facilitate the coverage of EAC issues and engage editors within the region to encourage them to pay more attention to EAC content.
The media was also challenged to popularize the EAC anthem by playing it regularly, provide information to help citizens understand activities of EAC, explain the benefits of integration, and be sensitive while reporting in order not to harm the process of integration.
Regional EAC states were challenged to repeal draconian laws and policies affecting media freedom and independence, provide policies for media practitioners to freely work in the region as professional service providers rather than workers and relax work permit requirements to facilitate skills transfer and exchange.
By David Lumu & Raymond Baguma, The New Vision
