Several
Ugandans took to social media on Sunday night to express their disappointment
over the failure by the National Broadcaster, Uganda Broadcasting Cooperation (UBC)
to broadcast the match between Uganda Cranes and Egypt.
Although UBC had resumed broadcasting the African Cup of Nations-Afcon on
June 26th 2019, following negotiations with Confederation of African Football
(CAF) and Africa Union of Broadcasters (AUB) on Sunday night, the station was
showing news instead of the match between Uganda Cranes and Egypt.
Football fans found solace in pay televisions and Kenya Broadcasting
Corporation-KBC to catch the live action from Egypt.
Details emerging from UBC show that the National Broadcaster has failed to secure Broadcasting rights for the African Cup of Nations-Afcon.
The
negotiations between Uganda, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and
Africa Union of Broadcasters (AUB) to allow UBC to broadcast the games on
credit have failed to yield results. UBC had sought Parliament’s intervention
to compel Government to avail Shillings 1 billion to pay for the rights.
However, Government can only release the money in the first quarter of this
financial year, which began at midnight.
Now,
in an internal memo to Staff, the UBC management regrets not being able to host
Afcon.
“As you could be aware, through Parliament some 1bn Shillings was
committed, unfortunately Ministry of Finance couldn’t provide the funds in due
time as required and set by CAF for us to able to obtain the free to air
games,” the statement reads.
Management regretted the inconvenience most especially at such a time when
the Uganda Cranes team is doing the country proud.
“These
are part of the perpetual challenges the national broadcaster is faced with and
it’s time Ugandans face the reality and come to the aid of this highly indebted
institution as a result of the debts carried forward from creation in
2005,” the statement reads.
It further says that the debts have crippled normal operations for all these
years but they hope to overcome them in the next months to come as government
is listening and committed to salvage the situation. The management encouraged
Ugandans to watch UBC as this was the only way that revenue could be raised.
Attempts to Speak to the UBC Managing Director Winston Agaba were futile by the
time of publishing this story. URN forwarded several questions to Agaba on the
way forward but he was yet to respond by the time of filing this report.
The Uganda Cranes advance to the knock out stage of Afcon despite a 2-0 loss to
Egypt on Sunday night. Uganda qualified after DRC stopped Zimbabwe 4:0, which
guaranteed Uganda a second place in Group A.
Uganda will face off with either neighbors Kenya or African giants Senegal on Friday depending on who wins Monday’s game.
–URN
