State television broadcaster, Uganda Television, UTV or UBC is set for a blackout on Friday
Workers at the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) plan to strike this week in a dispute over wages, threatening a nationwide television blackout for the first time in decades, TheUgandan can confirm.
This follows the death of another senior staff engineer Ewor Ochieng Pantius on Tuesday after he failed to raise Shs 30,000 ($8.66) for malaria treatment. Veteran sports commentator Andrew Patrick Luwandagga also passed away mysteriously a fortnight ago.
Disgruntled workers insist Friday’s major strike is to show their anger and frustration after their colleagues died because they lacked wages,pension and gratuity.
They have formed a crusading group called SaveUBC to engage the broadcaster’s board chairman, Simon Kaheru and get answers from the bosses about why three months’ salaries have not been cleared.
UBC spokesperson Rafsanjan Tatya couldn’t readily confirm or deny the impending workers’ strike.
Minister of Information, Technology and Communication, Frank Tumwebaze recently set up a committee that includes Odrek Rwabwogo (Museveni’s son in law) to review operations of UBC.
He argued that it’s vital to make full scan of UBC before requesting for financial support from government.
UTV, as it was then known, came on air in October 1963 and maintained a monopoly in TV broadcasting until 1992 when CableSat TV became the first private TV channel in Uganda.
