Journalists who benefited from iron sheets donated by the government say they will go ahead and use them to roof their houses despite calls for them to return the iron sheets.
Late last year, at least 20 local journalists from Lango Sub Region were among 4,000 families who received iron sheets from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) as part of a resettlement package for former displaced persons.
Through the Office of Minister in Charge of Northern Uganda Rehabilitation, each beneficiary including the media practitioners received 40 iron sheets.
Mr Philips Ogile, a Lira based freelance reporter on Monday said he will keep the donation since his house was burnt down during the peak of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels’ led insurgency in the north.
Ogile says, “The iron sheets will help me to repair my house.”
Ogile also claims that he does not know how he got on the list of beneficiaries, but adds he has no problem receiving the iron sheets adding that like any other household from northern Uganda, as a reporter (journalists) he too suffered.
Another journalist who benefited from the government resettlement package, Mr Patrick Ekol- Ekol says despite the questions being raised about his ethical conduct, he is not ready to listen to anyone.
Ekol-Ekol said he does not want to know who included his name among the journalists since he was in school by that time only to be called and sign for the iron sheets at the Lira Chief Administrative Officer (CAO)’s office.
He adds that, “I will go ahead to keep the goodies though the matter is raising a lot of dust.”
But Mr Moses Odokonyero, Chairperson of Northern Uganda Media Club (NUMEC), a media development organization says, “The journalists should not have accepted the iron sheets despite being part of a community which suffered during the insurgency.”
Odokonyero explained that as a journalist, one should at all times observe high ethical standards and accepting the donation from government has compromised both their integrity as well as their ethical code of conduct.
He dismissed the claims the benefiting reporters suffered during the war and said the argument does not hold water because the individual journalist was deliberately targeted to benefit for a reason best known to government.
Ms Juliet Naiga, the Vice President Uganda Journalists’ Association (UJA) says, “The journalists have been compromised since there is no documentation which indicates that the beneficiaries’ lost property during LRA protracted war.”
According to the Journalism Code of Ethics by the Independent Media Council of Uganda, “A journalist shall not solicit, accept bribes or any form of inducement meant to bend or influence professional performance”.
There is a growing fear among journalists in the north that such packages could be used by the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), to either bait journalists ahead of the 2016 general elections or use them as spies in the newsrooms.
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