By Our Reporters
It’s true that NTV long serving news manager Maurice Mugisha had plans to hang his boots at the Serena-based station but the May 2017 return to NMG Uganda by Daniel Kalinaki accelerated his decision. Informed sources say when Kalinaki returned to Kampala to manage the convergence of news management for all NMG news outlets (Daily Monitor, KFM, Dembe fm & NTV), things rapidly changed for the once very powerful Maurice. He lost a bit of his independence and couldn’t anymore determine the NTV news agenda as freely as he had been used to do in the preceding years. “He lost power to sign authorization facilitation vouchers. He could no longer allocate even Shs100,000 for a reporter to go for an urgent assignment. Everything was controlled at Namuwongo where Kalinaki sits and insists people must go and seek facilitation from,” said a seasoned NTV employee close to the matter. In the good olden days, Maurice then working under equally pragmatic MD Aggie Konde had his own budget and generously facilitated reporters and other employees for news-related assignments. “He always came off as someone very understanding when it comes to welfare of his team members. He inspired many, he was a listener and problem-solver but the entry of Kalinaki left him very crippled and many saw him as a shadow of his former self. This gradually frustrated him and couldn’t encourage guys to stay on because even he was disgruntled.” Sources added that Kalinaki’s bossy attitude of regularly calling him at short notice to jump on Boda-Boda running to Namuwongo for abrupt meetings further demoralized the swag Maurice had built over the years. The financially-constrained Maurice has at the same time been under constant pressure by Kalinaki & Co to compete with NBS TV whose news managers freely access resources and are simply unbeatable when it comes to delivering breaking news. He could no longer freely decide news stories and this risked making him lose some of the valued relationships built over the years including the one with Museveni’s State House where he was able to leverage on his power at NTV to get a juicy job for his wife. Irene Birungi now works at State House where she passes for the defacto Deputy PPS to Molly Kamukama. Museveni has always been very grateful to Maurice for helping to tame NTV but with the ever diminishing grip, resulting from the Kalinaki factor, it was doubtable the President wasn’t soon going to become disappointed. “His thinking was Kalinaki would stop at general supervision overseeing things from a distance but the possibility of imminent micro-management of the NTV news from Namuwongo greatly frightened Maurice and when the UBC opportunity came knocking moreover with a better pay, he wouldn’t say no. The timing was just perfect,” a source says of Maurice who is joining UBC as Deputy MD earning Shs22.5m monthly. At NTV, where the Kalinaki meddling was becoming too much, officially he barely earned a quarter of that! Having worked under Aggie Konde who vigorously opposed the merger when still MD for NTV, the Kalinaki guys at Namuwongo always viewed Maurice with plenty of suspicion. In fact failure to prevail on this matter partly prompted Konde to quit, according to knowledgeable sources. “He has always gone for meetings called by Kalinaki but he was never enthusiastic about those abrupt meetings. He often felt disrespected being called at short notice to Namuwongo and advised to jump on Boda-Boda,” added the source. As we reported earlier (see UBC RECRUITMENT HALTED 19th July 2018), grateful State House bosses want Maurice adequately rewarded for his loyalty at NTV by making him the full UBC Corporation MD when incumbent MD Winston Agaba finally leaves in 2 years. The new Kalinaki arrangement hasn’t only demoralized Maurice but has also constrained NTV’s capability to effectively compete in the news arena. Sometimes reporters are asked to use personal money and run after a story and be reimbursed. Just imagine competing with a channel like NBS that way! Sometimes the assignment editor Williams Kato has to get money (per story) from Namuwongo and send it to the reporter via mobile money. Sometimes reporters have been asked to use personal money and seek reimbursement only to end up in tears after Namuwongo refusing to reimburse on grounds the story wasn’t worth it. This has caused Maurice to face an uprising of sorts from his own reporters who end up blaming their failure to get a refund on him as news manager. NTV General Manager Johnson Omollo (a brother to Minister Sarah Opendi) is as frustrated and these days thinks more about his private businesses than the NTV job. “He clearly doesn’t see a future at NTV. He came with big expectations but ended up being exposed to much less privileges than his predecessor Konde. When he asked, his very indifferent superiors at Namuwongo simply told him Konde was an MD and for you are just GM,” a source explained regarding the GM’s unenviable predicament.
MASS EXODUS;
The news of Maurice’s impending departure has only made worse an already bad situation. Many of the guys, who owe their career success to him as a mentor, can’t imagine life without him. And consequently, they have notified management of their impending exit. These are mostly NTV pioneer reporters including Jingo Francis. Long-serving news anchor Josephine Karungi couldn’t hide her emotions on learning her mentor Maurice was calling it quits. “She was so frustrated, she is leaving journalism altogether for some other things. Her conclusion, prompted by the way Namuwongo has mistreated Maurice, is that it’s after all a thankless job,” sources said of Karungi. Chris Wasswa, another colossus in the NTV news production, too has made it clear to management his days aren’t going to be many at NTV. Sudhir Byaruhanga too hasn’t been spared the Maurice fiasco. He is headed for UBC just like Jingo. “Maurice loved his team at NTV and believes the best way to avoid disappointing his new bosses at UBC is to move with a core team of people he can build on once at the State Corporation,” a source explained. Whereas he is still reluctant to take up a slot at UBC, Maurice Ochwo is another veteran whom NTV can’t count on having been badly devastated by Maurice’s impending exit. All these guys are aggrieved because of the work-related constraints the convergence of news for NTV, Monitor paper and radios has created. Some of them feel (we are unsure how true this is) that its NTV which makes more money mostly from advertising than the Daily Monitor yet the print reporters still get generous facilitation like before (off the merged finances). They are also bitter that the Kenyan finance manager based at Namuwongo has so far not been courteous in the way he treats guys from NTV who come for facilitation. “Things have become over centralized and this is angering everybody. Can you imagine Maurice and Mr. Omollo have to depend on Namuwongo even to buy sugar? They can’t even autonomously purchase toilet papers. This is nothing but an embarrassment to them,” ranted an aggrieved non editorial NTV employee. Derrick Ntege of editorial, too is quitting saying he can’t imagine a reporter’s life at NTV without having highly motivating Maurice around. Mohammed Dhakaba, a sports analyst for the highly popular lunch hour sports program is quitting unable to imagine life without Maurice who he rightly considered a pillar of many things at NTV. It’s said that unable to do anything to restore the morale of his team, Maurice kept wondering what he was being news manager for since he wasn’t able to be in charge of anything anymore. Frank Walusimbi too, famous for his Luganda news reading skills and hosting the Sunday Tuwaye program, is quitting in 4 months’ time. Agnes Nandutu, of two very popular segments namely Point Blank and People’s Parliament, is also relentlessly being sweet-talked by Maurice to quit for UBC. She is said to still be reluctant saying it would be betrayal turning her back on NTV that got her from the dust and made her a house hold name. But the dilemma is all these were Maurice’s ideas and her role was only implementation. In fact the Point Blank script has always been scribbled by Maurice with Nandutu only voicing over-of course in a dramatized manner which only herself can manage. There are reports one of the competitor TV stations is introducing something similar to People’s Parliament and badly wants popular Nandutu to become the presenter. The TV station has reportedly already got very good funding for the same having signed off a funding contract for 5 years. There are fears since many of these guys are uneasy to replace at a poorly paying station, this mass exodus will only make the situation worse at NTV. Some fear that the station that has actually also been subsidizing loss-making Spark TV could gradually become unviable as a business collapse in the face of emerging formidable competitors like Kin Karisa’s NBS, Vision Group’s Bukedde TV and the revamping UBC. The state Corporation is going to be a big threat because poor remuneration, which for long was a problem, has finally been resolved through putting all employees on the government public service payroll. This makes them permanent and pensionable and the best remunerated in the industry. President Museveni is also going to write an executive order ring-fencing a percentage of all MDAs’ advertising budget for the Corporation. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755.
