REPORTING ON OIL, GAS AND MINING, WORKSHOP “B” KAMPALA,
PANEL DISCCUSSION BY JOURNALISTS AND CSO’s ON THE ISSUES ON THE EXTRACTIVE SECTOR IN UGANDA, on February 2, 2012 at ACME.
This was my take on the theme below:
THEME: Sector coverage since May 2011. What has changed from when we last met in May 2011—how special oil debate was covered, how coverage ought to be like during Bills debate (what to look out for), and coverage of farm down.
What has changed?
Most media houses have given more attention to the coverage of the sector and some are contemplating of starting an oil news desk.
The media has made Ugandans keener about the oil issues and therefore any news related to oil is given more attention by the public than before.
Coverage of the sector is no longer presumed as business news only but as a multidimensional, could be political, environment etc.
More journalists been interested to report on this sector but few have been trained.
How the debate was covered
The debate was a land mark in the history of the Uganda parliament that had to stretch sessions beyond normal time.
Oil debate dominated news in all media in Uganda. The debates were sparked by the secret oil-sharing agreements between government and Tullow Oil and the alleged bribery to some government officials by Tullow Oil, which it denied.
However, the debate did not only stretch the MPs alone but also the journalists and the media houses because they were compelled to discuss matters that they were new to them and not fully conversant with.
I wish also to observe that at some level, the media was bent on assumptions that the accused officials had really taken oil bribes and this picture to some extent was relayed to the public, (the viewers, listeners and readers).
The media to some extent failed on its role to give readers, viewers and listeners an informed position beyond what was discussed on the floor of parliament.
The accused ministers were not given fair coverage in the media only some few media houses tried to seek them outside parliament.
On this, the Media also failed to explain to the general reader, listener and viewer what the oil agreements are and mean to them now and in future.
The media also failed to contextualize the oil value chain from Upstream to downstream at the time of the debate so that an average Ugandan can know exactly at what stage the production has reached.
The media did not show which countries had published or not published their oil agreements in comparison to the Ugandan situation.
How coverage ought to be like during Bills debate (what to look out for)
Here we anticipate a hotter debate than last year because, the Bills; Resource Management Bill, Revenue Management Bill and Value Addition Management Bill are to set the laws on how the sector will be managed for more than 30 years.
And this calls for Media’s strategy to look out on how government plans to go about the resources and the revenues and who benefits in the value chain.
Media should look out for any clauses in the Bills that are ambiguous.
Coverage of farm down
The formal go-ahead for Tullow Oil to farm-down part of its Ugandan asset portfolio to its international partners, Total and CNOOC, has been slowed by the president objecting to part of the deal.
What this means has not yet been fully explained by the media since last September.
What this means to the country, to the oil companies and to the local person has not yet fully explained by the media.
Only Daily Monitor last week tried in an article on who loses or gains in this.
In Conclusion
A lot has to be done in training and strategy by the Media in Uganda to the coverage of the extractive sector. As journalists we must form networks/ parternerships with CSOs and other key players in this sector to be able to do better our work.
I personally, have been networking with Kabarole Research and Resource Centre (KRC) and Katwe Tourism Information Centre (KATIC) among others on extractives and other issues in the Western region.
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