Kampala — REPORTS that the Government intends to strike out the Article on freedom of speech from the Constitution are outrageous, the presidential assistant for institutions has said.

"We run the risk of engaging in extravagant speculation," noted David Mafabi, who was on Thursday speaking during a public dialogue on media regulation in Uganda at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

He asked media practitioners to participate in developing the country.

"The existing legal and administrative frameworks are adequate in ensuring the evolution of a free media," Mafabi observed.

John Kakande, the news editor of The New Vision, urged journalists to organise and assert themselves to advance their interests so as to ward off any threats plotted by the State.

"Most governments tend to control the media because they have interests they want to advance. We in the media in Uganda are our biggest enemies because we have not asserted our position as the fourth estate. Unless we consolidate ourselves as professionals, threats will be there."

It was difficult to find editors or media managers coming together to dialogue on issues that affect the industry, Kakande pointed out, adding that senior journalists had abandoned the practice to pursue careers in NGOs.

Veteran journalist and former Monitor editor-in-chief, Wafula Oguttu, also stressed media unity but noted that the practitioners today had been weakened by internal divisions.

"The State should have little business in regulating the media," said Andrew Mwenda, the managing editor of The Independent news magazine

"Newspapers and radios should be subjected to free market forces and the audiences will decide on which newspapers to buy or radio stations to listen to."

Mwenda added that the biggest threat to media freedom in the Uganda was not the State but the lack of journalistic skills.

The executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Livingstone Ssewanyana, noted that it was important to regulate the media mainly to promote professionalism, with the journalists having the freedom to organise themselves in unions and associations.

The dialogue was part of the anti-corruption programme funded by donors like DANIDA, to improve the capacity of the media to promote good governance and fight corruption.