Move by Kenyan Parliament to gag media driven by revenge, selfish interests


By endorsing the repressive Media Bill, members of the National Assembly were simply exercising their legislative mandate.

There is no denying, however, that their action was partly persuaded by rage directed at members of the Fourth Estate.

How else does one explain the treatment of the Kenyan journalist as a terrorist or common thief? Why, for instance, would the legislators endorse proposals for a fine of one million shillings on an individual journalist and proceed to freeze his or her personal bank account over defamation?

Some of MPs polled by The Standard on Sunday confess that the decision by the Jubilee-controlled House was driven by an element of fight-back. The legislators are not happy with the way newsmen and women have been unearthing alleged Government scandals and reporting on their unending salary demands.

Early in the year the media gave prominent coverage, including live television transmission, to demonstrating members of the civil society who camped outside Parliament with pigs to protest the MPs’ move to raise their salaries and allowances.

“This particular move, and many others, totally poisoned our relationship with the media. And I am sorry to admit that although we set out to give Kenyans good legislation in this Bill (Kenya Information and Communication), our anger may still be reflected in it,” one MP confided in The Standard on Sunday.

Chairman of the Editors’ Guild, Macharia Gaitho, holds the same view arguing that the MPs’ primary aim was to punish the media for exposing their greed: “We urge the President not to assent to this Bill as it will reverse the gains we have achieved over the years by returning the country to the old path of oppression and dictatorship.”

One of the MPs who contributed to the passing of the Bill, described by a host of Kenyans as draconian, is Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo. And the ODM legislator maintains the Bill in question is not necessarily a bad one.

“My contributions were very specific – and this was in favour of airing of more local content on TV and radio. Unfortunately, some of these positive gains are now clouded by negative clauses targeting journalists,” regrets Gumbo, who was chairman of the influential House Broadcast Committee that was instrumental in setting up a Media Centre at Parliament and initiated live broadcasts during the Tenth Parliament.

Incidentally, it is current Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communication and Technology Fred Matiang’i who, in conjunction with the State University of New York, executed the KenyaParliamentary Support Project. The first rage of the parliamentarians was to kick out journalists from the same Media Centre facility in June.

But it is the passage of the Bill last Wednesday that has sent shivers down the spines of many.

Individual unattached contributors are particularly a worried lot.

Mr Oscar Plato Okwaro of Quadz Consulting faults the notion of a government-controlled agency monitoring and slapping fines on journalists. “The Media Council is doing well enough to regulate the Press and in any democracy government does not regulate media. This development sends the wrong signals across the world that we have a weak Executive out to safeguard leadership through oppressive means,” says Okwaro.

Meanwhile, former Subukia MP Koigi Wamwere, views the Bill in question and recent threats by Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo to the media, as the government’s clear intention to regulate, censor and muzzle the media

Angry reactions


“The effort by Jubilee Government to regulate and muzzle the media is the first step towards a second dictatorship in Kenya,” claims Mr Wamwere, a former political detainee.

A Nairobi-based management consultant, Eliud Owallo, has threatened to proceed to court over the Bill’s unconstitutionally, should the President assent it into law.

But Attorney General Githu Muigai, describes the angry reactions to the Bill as “utterly premature.” Prof Githu attributes the reactions to attitude of impatience and comprehension of legal issues under the old mind frame.

“Since enactment of the new laws in 2010, the constitutional process has changed. Ministers, including the AG, no longer sit in Parliament to guide or influence debate on Bills, meaning such proposed legislations are purely the product of parliamentarians,” he explained.

The AG told The Standard on Sunday that the new arrangement now accords the relevant Cabinet officials – in this case Dr Matiang’i and himself – room to study the product from Parliament and make inputs into the Bill.

“After receiving the Bill and Hansard reports, we shall scrutinise, consult with the relevant ministry officials before advising the President through a memorandum on the constitutionality of the Bill,” says Githu.

The State-media battles are indeed not new in Kenya. When founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta first had a negative encounter with the press, The East African Standard published a protest by shadow Justice minister, Jean-Marie Seroney, on August 1 1963, challenging the government’s commitment to guaranteeing freedom of speech.

Then the Information minister, Achieng’ Oneko, came out guns blazing in defense of the Kenyatta administration and even threatened that Government would shut down some papers, “if they did not say what the government wanted”. A half a century later, another Cabinet official (from the former Nyanza Province) has come to the defense of President Kenyatta’s government over its first major collusion with the media.

Matiang’i recently defended Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo over his summons to journalists for stories they filed on the Westgate tragedy. He opined the case had been blown out of proportion and further supported the now controversial Information Bill.

But to his credit, the President has publicly expressed his commitment to “openness, transparency and accountability”.

When the President and Deputy President William Ruto hosted journalists to a breakfast meeting at State House in July, he even joked that for the first time he was meeting editors under a friendly atmosphere since “there were no issues to haggle over”.

But now the media fraternity has everything to complain about – thanks to the swift move byParliament to pass the Bill.

By OSCAR OBONYO, The Standard

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