New Vision celebrates 30 years by giving back to community

6 NEW VISION, Friday, March 4, 2016
NATIONAL NEWS
New Vision celebrates 30 years
by giving back to community
By John Semakula
After making significant achievements
in business for 30 years as the
leading newspaper, New Vision will
this month celebrate its mark in the
industry.
New Vision first hit the streets
on March 19, 1986 as a weekly
newspaper.
Vision Group’s chief executive
officer, Robert Kabushenga said the
30 years are important to celebrate
because many newspapers on the
globe that hit the streets in the same
period as New Vision did not live to
celebrate their first anniversary.
Kabushenga added that the 30-year
celebrations are important because
the newspaper has grown and
captured the public’s eye and people
now see it as a public asset.
“We have a lot to celebrate. We have
sustained our business commercially
by growing the newspaper and
developing a variety of products. We
are now able to deliver services to the
expectations of our business partners
and pay a commensurate salary to the
professionals we employ,” he said.
Kabushenga noted that with all
those achievements of New Vision at
30, he is confident the newspaper can
survive for decades long after he has
left.
The CEO also noted that over
the last 30 years, New Vision has
played a significant role in advancing
democracy and in the growth and
innovation in the media.
He said the celebrations will be
launched with a special edition of
the newspaper that will run with
interesting stories about the 30-year
journey and individuals behind it.
Kabushenga
hailed
President
Yoweri Museveni for the success of
the newspaper. He said it has been
the President’s vision to allow the
newspaper run as an autonomous
entity with less political interference
that has enabled it to grow.
“Most media houses operating with
structures like ours suffer political
interference. But at New Vision, we
do not have such interference, which
gives us credibility among members
of the public,” Kabushenga said.
New Vision’s 30-year anniversary
will be celebrated in a special way,
Kabushenga auctioning Pope Francis’ portrait as Rev. Mother Anne Kizza (left) and Sister Pauline
Namuddu the headmistress of Nsambya Girls S.S (right), hold it during the Indian Business Forum
thanksgiving ceremony at Kabira Country Club in November last year. This was to raise money for the
reconstruction of the Martyrs shrines ahead of Pope Francis’ visit
BETWEEN THE LINES:
n Kabushenga said members
of the public will participate
in the celebrations by taking
part in promotions, which
the newspaper will run in
commemorating the 30 years.
according to the CEO. The company
will not organise parties. Instead, it
will use the money that would have
been spent on food to give back to the
community.
“Whereas other companies celebrate
their milestones by throwing big
parties for staff members, we have
agreed to use the money we had set
aside for the celebrations to give back
to the community,” Kabushenga said.
He said members of the public will
participate in the celebrations by
taking part in promotions, which the
newspaper will run in commemorating
the 30 years.
Special cash prizes will be won
by those who will take part in the
promotions. The total sum of money
involved in the promotions is yet to be
agreed upon.
The CEO said the cash prizes which
the participants in the promotions will
win shall be dispensed to them in
form of educational scholarships.
There will also be an internal drive
within New Vision during which
members of staff will donate to the
community.
“The items which staff members
will donate to the community could
include clothes, books and foodstuff,”
Kabushenga said.
“The mechanism of identifying
beneficiaries will be communicated
later,” he said, adding that the
celebrations will run for several
weeks.
In its 30 years of existence, New
Vision only made a loss during the
first year of operation. Kabushenga
said the last 29 years have been
success stories.
Vision Group’s Editor-in-Chief,
Barbara Kaija, thanked the audience
for always supporting New Vision.
“We are grateful to the people of
Uganda for loving and supporting
the New Vision. It is the people who
buy New Vision every day that have
grown us from a small eight-page
weekly newspaper, that we were in
1986, into a multi-media powerhouse
that advances society,” Kaija observed.
“The story of the New Vision
is synonymous with the story of
Uganda. In future when the scholars
scan the historical files, they will find
that two stories in the period 1986 to
date cannot be divorced from each
other. That is, what a successful and
responsible newspaper should be; a
true reflection of society.”
“In the 1980s, as the country
struggled to rebuild a functional
government, New Vision was there to
record the story and as we grappled
with the unprecedented number
of orphans as a result of the many
wars and the HIV/AIDS scourge,
New Vision was there both to record
the story and to offer a platform
for the stakeholders to discuss the
possible solutions. The story of
emancipating the Ugandan society
from underdevelopment, disease and
poverty has been New Vision’s story,”
Kaija noted.
“Today, as Uganda once again faces
the challenges of a huge youthful
population that cannot be absorbed
into the formal sector, New Vision is
there with our entrepreneur products
like Pakasa and Harvest Money – the
special farming guide, to offer our
audiences the information they need
to make a livelihood,” she added.
Features Editor John Eremu
observed that the various products of
the newspaper have impacted directly
on the lives of Ugandans.
“When you pick a copy of New
Vision, you get something for
everybody;
politicians, children,
women and men,” Eremu said. He
noted that some of the other media
houses in the region have tended to
copy the innovations started by New
Vision. “We have become pacesetters,”
Eremu said.
He explained that in the health
sector, New Vision’s health pullout,
Verve, has been fundamental in
advancing policy changes to improve
health service delivery.
“We have had a footprint in health
campaigns against AIDS and cancer,”
Eremu said.
New Vision has equally played a
big role in education, business and
environment sectors.
In education, New Vision has done
a lot, including highlighting the
challenges faced under the universal
primary and secondary education
programmes, including exposing
corruption.
New Vision has organised several
fora under the Pakasa Forum that have
benefitted hundreds of Ugandans to
start gainful economic activities.
Eremu explained that New Vision
has spearheaded environmental
campaigns, including the most recent
one on protecting Lake Victoria
against pollution.
He said as part of the celebrations,
New Vision is to launch a tree planting
campaign and the company is holding
talks with prospective partners.
Hearing of Aine’s production court case delayed
By Michael Odeng
and Barbra Kabahumuza
The inaugural hearing of
an application seeking to
compel the state to produce
Christopher Aine in court
dead
or alive
flopped
yesterday (Thursday).
Aine was the head of Amama
Mbabazi’s private security
team during the presidential
campaigns.
He
went
missing
in
December last year after
a scuffle in Ntungamo,
where Mbabazi’s supporters
allegedly beat up a rival group
of the National Resistance
Movement
(NRM)
party
supporters.
On January 5, 2016, Aine’s
lawyers petitioned court to
compel the Inspector General
of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura,
to produce Aine in court
‘dead,’ or ‘alive’.
However, the office of the
Attorney General (AG) was
not represented yesterday,
which had been scheduled
to be the first hearing of the
case.
Mbabazi’s lawyer, John
Mary Mugisha, told court
presided over by Justice Lydia
Mugambe that the Attorney
General (AG) was not notified
of the hearing.
State Attorney Genevieve
Kampiire represented the AG’s
office during the preliminary
stages of the case when court
directed telecom giants MTN
and Airtel to produce Aine’s
mobile phone printouts on
January 27.
Mugisha argued that the
documents were vital to
establish Aine’s whereabouts.
“The court was supposed to
serve parties privy to the case
hearing notices, but it did
not. Therefore, both parties
were not aware of the hearing
date,” Mugisha said.
Mugisha asked court for
an
adjournment,
which
prompted Mugambe to fix the
case for March 22.
About a fortnight ago, the
telephone printouts between
Aine and his cousin, Ezra
Kabugo, had been availed to
court as investigations into
Aine’s whereabouts go on.
But according to a copy of
Kabugo’s printout that New
Vision has seen, some owners
of mobile telephone numbers
that he (Kabugo) has been
communicating with were
not registered as required by
the Uganda Communications
Commission.
The
unregistered numbers were
mostly for MTN and Airtel
telecom networks.
The printout also shows
that Kabugo was mostly
within Kampala and he
would occasionally receive
calls while in Kakooge,
Nakasongola district and
Luwero district.
In a sworn affidavit, Kabugo
claims that since Aine’s arrest
by plainclothes Police officers
last year on December 14,
he has never been arraigned
formally before courts of law.
He adds that no valid reason
has been given for his arrest,
yet efforts to trace him in all
Police detention centres have
proved futile.