Former Daily Monitor Managing Editor and hitherto President Yoweri Museveni’s Press Secretary, Don Wanyama will take over from long serving Robert Kabushenga as the new CEO -at Uganda’s leading daily the New Vision Group , the company’s Board Chairman, Mr. Patrick Ayota has announced.
Kabushenga who resigned the position early this year has since congratulated Wanyama upon the appointment. “Congratulations on getting one of the best jobs in Uganda. All the best ,”Kabushenga tweeted.
This website reported last month while quoting multiple sources that Wanyama who is also a close buddy to the first son Gen .Muhoozi was leading in the race to replace Kabushenga. He has beaten the current Editor in Chief – Barbra Kaija, Next Radio general manager Marcus Kwikiriza and former Deputy General of the External Security Organisation(ESO) Emmanuel Ewaku Allio to become the next most powerful person at The New Vision- a historical entity for the post NRA/NRM liberation struggle .
This publication has learnt that government , given the political dynamics – was interested to recruit a relatively young dynamic individual who was -a grounded- independent minded media manager -who will be aggressive and with a background coming from the “opposition’ media -to deal with the anti-regime propaganda largely manifested on new and social media – mostly propagated by Ugandans in the diaspora.
Sources told this website that the Ministry of Finance which is the majority shareholder at New Vision ( on behalf of government ) had recommended the appointment of Wanyama as the next CEO following a series of job interviews .
Wanyama , a trained teacher and journalist worked at the Daily Monitor as a sub and later Chief Sub Editor in the mid 2000s and had a brief stint as the Managing Editor before he was unceremoniously sacked for allegedly publishing a “cooked” up opinion poll that favoured President Museveni in the run up-to to the 2016 general elections.
At Daily Monitor , many former colleagues say Wanyama is an amiable person who exhibited excellent skills as an editor at the top level of a big national media organization. But others say he lacks the managerial credentials to run a big historical media business like The New Vision which is a listed public company with many shareholders currently not happy with its performance .
But Wanyama’s apparent lack of business management credentials can be mitigated by the fact that New Vision still has some veterans in there -like Gervase Ndyanabo who was a long serving Chief Internal Auditor and now serving as the Company Secretary who can take care of the business aspects of the organization -as the new CEO focus on the editorial and political interests of government who are the majority shareholders.
