By Jerry Okungu
Nairobi, Kenya
November 6, 2013
President Uhuru says he
won’t sign the controversial Media Bill until all the contentious issues are
resolved.
Deputy President William
Ruto has also voiced his opposition to the Media Bill.
Not left behind are the
senators that want the bill returned to the House so that they can scrutinize
it.
However, voices from the
National Assembly are at variance with these suggestions. The chairman of the
Committee that drafted the bill is adamant that the bill is just and democratic
and that there is nothing draconian about it and that the president should sign
it into law.
In this stand he seems to
get the backing of the Speaker of the National Assembly who says that the horse
has left the stable and the bill is already in the conveyor belt headed to the
president. He seemed to be shutting the door to any further consultations with
aggrieved stake holders.
The media fraternity is up
in arms for the following reasons:
It would appear that the
format earlier jointly endorsed by all parties has either been ignored or
tampered with on the floor of parliament.
The bill in its present
form has rendered the current Media Council impotent and irrelevant.
The new body to be known
as the Media and Communications Authority will set up a tribunal to regulate
the media. Under this set up, any journalist that violates the operational
rules will be subject to a fine of not more than Ksh. 1million shillings while
the media house that transgresses the new regulations will attract a fine Ksh
20 million.
The Authority has also put
a caveat on the amount of foreign content to be aired on local stations. They
have sealed it at 55% while 45% of content including advertising must be
locally produced.
Technically the bill takes
away self regulation that the media has enjoyed for some time.
The draconian Media Bill
has its origin in the running battles that the media has had with the National
Assembly over the salary remuneration of MPs. Whereas the media rightly
vilified the political class’ greed in the midst of abject poverty, the MPs
finally had their way with the Chairman of The Salaries Review Commission and
got their Ksh 1 million per month package.
This controversy made
enraged lawmakers to promise the media punitive legislation in the future; a
process that would eventually replace self regulation with media control by the
government.
As it is, membership of
both the Media and Communications Authority and the Tribunal will be appointees
of various arms of government. The media fraternity will have no direct
influence on the matter.
Having said that, it is
important to put the relation between media and political
Class in perspective. This
relationship can be compared to the friendship between the chicken and the fox.
The chicken never really knows when the fox will turn around and snap its neck.
For decades the media has
played very dirty roles in exchange for cash. Politicians have used them to
finish their rivals from time to time.
During elections, the
media has behaved very badly. The same journalists have rushed to pack media
campaign offices all in the name of wind falls from politicians. Different
political parties hire their services to further their political agenda. They
have failed to remain nonpartisan.
For the last two decades
when the media was liberalized, we have had a mushrooming of broadcast media
especially radio stations. We have all sorts of media houses broadcasting in
English, Kiswahili and leading local languages.
This has generated stiff
competition resulting in a lot of unprofessionalism.
In order to attract
audiences, some media houses have resorted to obscenity where sex becomes the
staple food that adults and children are subjected to day in day out. Yet the
current Media Council that is supposed to self regulate has never bothered to
reign on these rogue broadcasters all in the name of freedom of expression and
freedom of the press. If the Media Council had chosen to be proactive rather
than wait for transgressions to be taken to them in their offices, it would not
have come to this.
Now that the horse has
bolted from the stable, what next for the Media?
They must pray that
president Uhuru does not sign it into law and even though, Uhuru must return
the bill to the same parliament with his own memo explaining why he has
rejected the bill.
Under the circumstances,
parliament will look at it afresh. If they concur with the president then they
will amend the offending clauses. However, if MPs vote to retain the bill in
its current form and garner a two thirds majority then it becomes law without
the signature of the president.
As things stand, it will
need a lot of lobbying by the media to have the bill amended. The starting point
should be the Senate Speaker who seems sympathetic to their cause.
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