A Facebook post circulating in Uganda claims police defended the country’s health minister, Jane Ruth Aceng, for not wearing a face mask in public.
This was after video footage was shared on social media showing Aceng at a public gathering, maskless, and not maintaining physical distance, despite guidelines put in place by the health ministry to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
In video and photos of the same event, the minister is not wearing a mask, though people in the crowd are.
The post reads: “POLICE CLEARS THE AIR ABOUT HON RUTH ACENG. It has come to our understanding that the Video in circulation of the minister of health leading a huge crowd without masks was taken last year not recently like they say ... Fred Enanga said.”
Fred Enanga is the police spokesperson, who is pictured in the post.
The post goes on to claim that this statement comes after some parliamentarians called for disciplinary action to be taken against the health minister.
But did the police really defend the minister, or say the event in question was from 2019?
News reports from Uganda’s capital, Kampala, said the minister was being criticised for failing to wear a mask, and for not keeping physical distance from others, at an event on 10 July 2020.
A daily newspaper, the Monitor, also reported on the incident and quoted the minister explaining that the event was overrun by people wanting the mosquito nets and face masks she was distributing.
In an article published on the website of the Uganda Media Centre, the government body that handles public communications, Ofwono Opondo, executive director of the centre, defended the minister.
He wrote that Aceng was “caught off guard” and had “publicly regretted the incident”.
But while some government officials have defended the minister, the police did not.
They shared screenshots of similar social media posts on their verified Twitter account, captioned “FAKE NEWS”. And there are no credible reports of spokesperson Enanga defending the health minister. – Grace Gichuhi
This was after video footage was shared on social media showing Aceng at a public gathering, maskless, and not maintaining physical distance, despite guidelines put in place by the health ministry to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
In video and photos of the same event, the minister is not wearing a mask, though people in the crowd are.
The post reads: “POLICE CLEARS THE AIR ABOUT HON RUTH ACENG. It has come to our understanding that the Video in circulation of the minister of health leading a huge crowd without masks was taken last year not recently like they say ... Fred Enanga said.”
Fred Enanga is the police spokesperson, who is pictured in the post.
The post goes on to claim that this statement comes after some parliamentarians called for disciplinary action to be taken against the health minister.
But did the police really defend the minister, or say the event in question was from 2019?
Footage legit
News reports from Uganda’s capital, Kampala, said the minister was being criticised for failing to wear a mask, and for not keeping physical distance from others, at an event on 10 July 2020.
A daily newspaper, the Monitor, also reported on the incident and quoted the minister explaining that the event was overrun by people wanting the mosquito nets and face masks she was distributing.
In an article published on the website of the Uganda Media Centre, the government body that handles public communications, Ofwono Opondo, executive director of the centre, defended the minister.
He wrote that Aceng was “caught off guard” and had “publicly regretted the incident”.
Police call social media posts ‘fake’
But while some government officials have defended the minister, the police did not.
They shared screenshots of similar social media posts on their verified Twitter account, captioned “FAKE NEWS”. And there are no credible reports of spokesperson Enanga defending the health minister. – Grace Gichuhi
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