By Mulengera Reporters
The UBC MD David Winstone Agaba has written to the Presidency Permanent Secretary Hajji Yunnus Kakande imploring him to help punish Amuru RDC Stephen Odong Latek for allegedly aiding Ms Jovia Irene Atek, the notorious NRM media activist based in Gulu, to fraudulently grab Mega fm Gulu and turn it into personal property yet it belongs to government.
Mega fm commenced in August 2002 and this was with funding from the UK government/DFID, which later on donated it to the GoU to boost community mobilisation. For many years, it was Northern Uganda’s most influential radio station as its broadcasting impacted communities as far as parts of South Sudan.
In 2011, Atek became the station manager Mega fm replacing David Okidi who was recalled to UBC headquarters in Kampala.
But in 2022, she developed irreconcillable differences with the Board of UBC (which owns Mega fm on behalf of the GoU) and she was suspended before being fully expelled in March 2024.
This related to the land title relating to Mega fm/UBC’s 80 acres of land in Gulu City which she picked from the Gulu Zonal Office but never passed on to her superiors in Kampala.
She resisted vacating office which prompted the line Minister Godfrey Kabbyanga to work with UBC top management to put together a team of 6 officials to go and force her out. Instead, they ended up being confronted by RDC Stephen Odong Latek who accused them of criminal trespass.
Latek asserted that this was private property belonging to Atek’s company called Mega Community Broadcasts Ltd. It was made clear to them this wasn’t government property at all.
The information, the office of the Solicitor General has since obtained from URSB after being petitioned by the ICT Ministry PS Aminah Zawedde, indicates that this private company shareholders and directors include Jovia Irene Atek, Anthony Akol, Musa Khalil, Kato Ahmed Hassan, Stephen Latek Odong and others.
So, with the RDC’s backing, Atek was able to defiantly remain in office while frustrating the caretaker arrangement Minister Kabbyanga had put in place.
Kabbyanga wanted the Mega fm operations to be audited to establish the relevant finance and human resource management interventions that required to be made in the post-Atek period. All these efforts by Kabbyanga were frustrated.
Instead, Atek stayed put and went ahead to close the Mega fm offices in Kampala at UBC headquarters besides opening her own company bank account to which all advertising clients were required to wire the pending balances. She even fired some staff. The account she opened was in Housing Finance Bank Gulu branch where all money had to be paid.
Mega fm makes makes sales of roughly Shs1.5bn annually and up to like 70% of that can be collected. In his audit report, the Auditor General raises a query about this too and it’s the reason why Atek will require divine intervention to survive being locked up by COSASE at the forthcoming appearance of UBC officials and their parent Ministry of ICT&NG will be invited to.
The Auditor General estimates that a lot of government cash has been lost as a result of this controversial take over of Mega fm by Atek.
The UBC boss, whose management recently put out a newspaper advert publicising Atek’s knifing yet she ignored the same and carried on, also asserts that all this mischief by the ex-Mega fm station manager has been enabled because of the protection and backing she keeps getting from powerful actors like RDC Latek.
This is the reason Winstone Agaba wants Hajji Kakande, who has supervisory power and authority over all RDCs, to have the Amuru Resident District Commissioner severely sanctioned and even criminally prosecuted.
The ICT Ministry has also written and exchanged many correspondences with Uganda Police Force, Solicitor General and URSB on this Mega fm matter but not much progress has been made thus far.
The Minister Kabbyanga went as far as tasking two ICT Ministry officers to caretake the situation at Mega fm and ensure that Atek was forced out but they haven’t succeeded too because the disgraced former Manager keeps making reference to names of big people.
The officers Kabbyanga had assigned the task include Principal Conmunications Officer Pius Mwinganisa and Head of Internal Audit at the Ministry Patrick Ohaya Mawadri. They have proved too powerless to frighten Jovia Irene Atek in any way.
Referring to unpaid salaries and job insecurity they have had to put up with, the surviving Mega fm staff recently anonymously wrote to the ICT Minister Chris Baryomunsi calling on him to intervene and stop Atek.
They also spoke about delayed salaries and general decline of business performance at Mega fm as advertisers flee to instead market with with Vision Group-owned Rupiny fm. They also pleaded with Baryomunsi to boost Kabbyanga to ensure that the very vindictive Atek doesn’t succeed in terminating staff contracts in favor of her preferred new recruits. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
