{UAH} State House: row erupts over jobs

State House: row erupts over jobs

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MONDAY, 01 SEPTEMBER 2014 00:27

WRITTEN BY SADAB KITATTA KAAYA

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Power and money: Sarah Kagingo at work updating the president's social media platforms

Bitter row involves three women and hundreds of millions of shillings

State House is blighted by a deepening conflict over control of its website and President Museveni's social media platforms.

According to insider sources, the conflict pits new recruit Sarah Kagingo, a special presidential assistant on communications on the one hand, against deputy Presidential Press Secretary Linda Wamboka Nabusayi and Charlotte Turatunga, the presidential private secretary in charge of ICT.

Nabusayi and Turatunga have now taken over from Kagingo as the new managers of Museveni's Facebook and Twitter accounts, sources say. The two; Nabusayi, and Turatunga and two other officials from the State House ICT department are now learning how to use the two social media platforms courtesy of Mercury LLC, the US firm hired recently to manage Museveni's public relations.

The training began on July 5. Interviewed on Saturday, Nabusayi roundly denied there were any fights between her and Kagingo over their roles at State House.

"Everybody has a job description, I am number three in that office's [Press Unit] hierarchy," Nabusayi said.

"I am a public servant with clear roles; I am not a political appointee; where do I get the guts to fight someone? Those fights are imaginary," Nabusayi added.

Contacted at the weekend, Kagingo declined to comment.

Facebook, twitter

Museveni has one official Facebook page; Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, created six months ago. It has a following of 147,000 fans. His official Twitter handle @KagutaMuseveni, created in April this year, has 51,800 followers. The pages were reportedly created by Kagingo when she joined State House at the urging of the president.

Besides the social media platforms, Kagingo also took over the management of the State House and Museveni's websites. To ensure that Kagingo stops updating the websites, all presidential press unit (PPU) photographers were directed to stop sharing Museveni's event photos with her.

"[It was]decided that Kagingo stops working, stops [updating Museveni's social media], to give a chance to Nabusayi and the ICT team to showcase their abilities," an insider source said.

"The issue here is that by the time the people in the press unit [would] go back to office to do any work or write a press release, Kagingo would have splashed everything on social media," the source said.

Another source said Kagingo has since been moved to the office of the minister for the Presidency, Frank Tumwebaze. The move, the source said, is meant to streamline the roles of the different State House staff.

"The primary source of their conflict [Kagingo and Nabusayi] was the confusion around their roles; they had overlapping roles but I think it has now been sorted out," the source said.

"Before Kagingo came in, there were people who were in charge of the website, I think they have taken back the responsibility but right now I am not sure of Kagingo's new roles," the source added.

There were also suggestions that Kagingo should be moved to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) before Museveni announces himself on who will be the "commander" of social media. This follows concerns within State House that instead of using the social media to expose Prime minister Amama Mbabazi's schemes against Museveni, Kagingo instead promotes the premier with posts and photos of him with President Museveni.

Websites

Museveni's website; www.presidentmuseveni.com which was built in 2009 by an Irish firm at a reported cost of a few hundred million shillings, is now up for sale. Sources said the website was left to expire, forcing its hosts to put it on sale. The Observer has learnt that Turatunga, who was the website manager, raised security concerns. Turatunga warned that the Irish who built the website were infiltrators who had earlier on infiltrated the ring of former Libyan President Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Close: Sarah Kagingo (L) attending to the president during a public event

The raging battle between Kagingo, Nabusayi and Turatunga primarily stems from the construction of the second website, www.statehouse.go.ug, itself said to have cost hundreds of millions of  shillings. During one of the State House meetings last year, Kagingo reportedly told Museveni that he had been overcharged for the website. The figure Museveni was quoted, Kagingo reported, was at least 300 times more than the average cost of an ordinary website – which she put at Shs 2m.

"If designing websites costs that much, no Ugandan company would afford a website," Kagingo reportedly told Museveni.

Construction of the  website was awarded to Tetea, a company linked to a son to a well-regarded  cabinet minister.

American firm

State House comptroller Lucy Nakyobe

The PR firm, Mercury LLC will among other things also prepare Museveni's press briefs. The Observer has learnt that after preparing the briefs, the firm will submit them to Nabusayi, before they go to the president's private secretary and, if necessary, the president himself.

The changes were initiated by State House's comptroller, Lucy Nakyobe.

Misinformed

Nakyobe in an interview on Saturday said Kagingo's report on the Shs 650m cost of the State House website was misinformed.

"Kagingo [spoke] from a non-informed point of view," Nakyobe said.

"Her problem is that even when she is informed, she decides to mis-report, I don't know what her intentions are," Nakyobe added.

Nakyobe said the rivalry had been settled. Asked about the fight for control of websites, Nakyobe said the matter had been resolved. She said Nabusayi was put in charge of the print media, Kagingo in charge of social media and Turatunga in charge of the website.

"The problem is that Kagingo wants to operate in an informal way because when she came in, she went through backdoors and hijacked the website and the social media but we said no, there is a procedure that is followed," Nakyobe said.

Nakyobe also refuted reports that Kagingo had been moved from State House to the President's office.

sadabkk@observer.ug

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

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