East African Gazette
The new board members of the Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC) have been sworn in at an event that took place at the ministry of Gender,Labour and Social Development on Friday 5th,April,2023
The board will be headed by Prof. Okaka Okaka Opio Dokotum is an associate professor of literature and film and deputy vice-chancellor (Academic Affairs) at Lira University, Uganda.
He will deputized by Phina Mugerwa, who was elected Vice chairperson of the board.
Musicians Bebe Cool, Lillian Mbabazi and Jose Chameleon were also sworn in as members of the board although Chameleon never attended the swearing in ceremony because of losing his elder brother Humphrey Mayanja a few days ago
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Fun Factory member Hannington Bujingo was also sworn in as a board member
Other members that were sworn in included Dr. Richard Komakech, Juliana Naumo
The new board chairperson Prof Okaka called for more investment in the activities of the creative sector and said that one of his first tasks will be to convince the ministry to invest more money in art and cultural activities
“Limited funding is one of the reasons why UNCC hasn’t been fulfilling its mandate but I hope to convince the ministry to support UNCC in its budgetary requests because through funding that the body will be in position to execute its roles of entertaining the people of Uganda,” he said after swearing in.
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While officiating at the event, the minister for gender, labour and social development Hon Betty Among said she is happy to see the progress the creative sector is making as their work is concerned
“ I attended the film awards recently and I was impressed with the quality of the event because it was organized at international level,” she said
She said art and culture is a very big sector because it has capacity to transform lives of many people in Uganda
“ I have seen artists working with many people such as drivers, camera crew, producers, band members, dancers . It’s the reason why the cabinet has agreed to help the arts sector by investing in it,” she said
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She said that the copyright law that the creative industry has been fighting for will soon be passed by parliament because the government has accepted its amendment
“Besides copy right, were also going to make sure that we renovated the National Theatre because the infrastructure needs rehabilitation,” she added
France Peter Ojede,the executive director UNCC welcomed the new board members and said that he will be working with them to see that they fulfill their mandate of providing a platform for the art and culture sector members to do their work
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