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"speaker_name": "Mr. Kipchumba",
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"legal_name": "Joseph Kipchumba Lagat",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I wish to give my comments on this Bill. For several years, Kenyans have faced many frustrations because media houses have failed to carry out their duties. When people fail to do their job, then that calls upon other people to assist them. I, personally, did not wish that the media be assisted. However, I think the media is made up of people who do not want to do their job. The Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs has put it very clearly, that if you are misreported, and you ask for an apology and they, indeed, establish that you were misquoted, the apology note appears in very small print, in a section that you will struggle to find. That beats logic. Why would the media want to apologise in a way that nobody would see? That frustration is forcing many people to think that the media requires assistance. That assistance has to come from elsewhere. Many of the print media houses we have in this country today - and I think, partly, this has to do with the Government--- We have some newspapers in the streets whose addresses are not known. What is the Government doing about this? Are we being told that we have a Government which cannot locate the physical addresses of the media houses? This is not a question of the law. We have a newspaper which is printed every day, but no one knows its address. If you wanted to sue that newspaper, you would not know who to sue. So, I presume that if the media was self-regulative, that newspaper would not have been in the streets. They would have enforced certain regulations that would not allow newspapers whose addresses are not known to sell. Nobody knows who writes them. That is the frustration we are facing. I would have expected this Bill to go beyond what it is stipulating. While I agree with what hon. Muite has said, that we should allow the media to self- regulate, I think the media fraternity should tell us when they will have the capacity to do that. If, indeed, they will not have that capacity, then they should ask for it or we give it to them whether they like it or not. I have read this Bill--- While we appreciate that the media is a very good forum from where this country can fight corruption--- Corruption in this country has been highlighted mainly by the media. We would like to use this tool to fight corruption and to do justice to this country. Those are the positive aspects of the media. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, many Kenyans cannot afford to go to court when the media misreports them. The ordinary people do not have money to go to court. If you read through history, you will see that those who have managed to go to court are people with money. They can afford to hire a lawyer. Therefore, we must allow extra avenues that will protect even ordinary people's rights. If we expect to go to court every time we are wronged, considering the slow course of justice, it might take many years before the case is heard. I was wondering whether, since I read through the Bill, and the Bill clearly says in part; \"The Council shall comprise the following---\" It names the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), the Media Owners Association, the Law Society of Kenya, among others. Most of these are agencies that deal with the media. If, indeed, the media is not in concurrence with what we are proposing, what will happen if they fail to nominate representatives? If the KUJ refuses to nominate their representative to the Council, what will happen? That is the law. We are establishing a law that will govern both the media and the Government. We have said that the media should appoint somebody to the Council. What if they do not, what will we do? If the Media Owners Association does not appoint somebody to the council, what are we supposed to do? Probably, we should create an avenue to regulate the media. I July 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2181 want to agree to a certain extent that we should cultivate more agreements so that we pass a Bill that is acceptable to everybody. You cannot come up with a Bill today, and then ask the media to appoint their representatives to Media Council of Kenya. If they do not, what will we do? Therefore, while we want to have a whip that will make sure that this media is regulated, I foresee a very dangerous situation where if they refuse to nominate the persons, this Bill will be as good as dead. Therefore, I would want us to still create more time. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not know what problems the media have, but many of the journalists are poorly paid. That is a fact! If they were well paid--- The reason we say the police should be paid well is to reduce corruption. It should also happen for the media. The media should also be well paid. Many members of the so-called Media Owners Association (MOA) pay these journalists peanuts and expect them to write a very good story. They may not complain because they have no other jobs! If they get other jobs, they will move immediately; if they get the job of Koigi, they will come and take it over. Everybody would like to have the best, but in the absence of an alternative, I would personally believe that many of the newspapers or media stations do not pay very well. And that is why, occasionally, we have a lot of problems. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to request--- And let us not bury our heads in the sand! Many people say that when you fight the media, you can never win because they will keep on reporting a story after a story, and that has been the trend in this country. But if, indeed, we would want to allow the media to self-regulate, as it is being proposed, why do we not then remove the Minister from appointing the chairperson of this association? But then, the next question will be: How will the Government fund an office that it has no total control of? Why would the Government want to spend extra taxpayers' money on an institution which we can deal with in another forum? We are talking of--- And if you read through, it finally says: \"The enactment of this Bill will occasion additional expenditure of public funds\". Those are public funds that the Exchequer--- Our taxes will be used to fund this institution. I wish we could avoid a situation where we are going to use taxpayers' money to fund this animal of regulating the media. Therefore, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would still want to request that--- This Bill says that the headquarters of the Council shall be in Nairobi. I mean, why Nairobi? I have always argued in this House that when you prepare a Bill, let us not be very particular about its location. And we have always changed, we have always removed it from saying: \"The headquarters of the Council shall be in Nairobi\". I would personally say: \"The headquarters will be located as may be decided\". It can be in Mombasa or anywhere else. Therefore, that should be removed. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you read Clause No.5, it says: \"The functions of the Council are to- (a) mediate or arbitrate in disputes between the Government and the media, between the public and the media and intra-media;\" What for? So what? So, after you mediate, so what happens? We must be told of the consequence. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if we are to allow the media to regulate itself, we must, therefore, provide for penalties that in an event the media or the association is unable to do its job, that the following shall apply--- They must pay penalties to the Government or the respective agencies. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want us to make additions to these bodies that will form this agency. The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) is an interested party. If you look at many of our newspapers today, especially on Tuesdays, most of the sections pertain to advertisements of jobs and so forth, that are intended for the manufacturers or the business community. Therefore, they must be represented. Consumer organizations, which is the aggrieved body, is not taken care of. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the Minister talks of the joint forum of religious organizations. I have never in this country heard of a joint forum of religious organizations. It describes them as the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) and so forth, but does such 2182 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 3, 2007 a forum exist? If, indeed, we want the religious sector to be involved, you cannot put one! If you put a Muslim, you must always put a Christian and so forth. Therefore, that must be expanded. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at Clause 8, it says: \"(1) Without prejudice to the provisions of section 7(2), a person shall not be eligible for appointment to the Council unless such person- (b) is committed to constitutional freedom of expression, responsible journalism---\" Those are subjective! How would you determine whether a person is committed to all these? I do not believe that we will make laws that are very subjective. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, Clause 12 says: \"The members of the Council shall be paid such remuneration, fees, allowances and disbursements for expenses as may be determined by the Minister for the time being responsible for finance\". Why the Minister for Finance? Why can the Minister responsible for Information and Communications not do his job and determine how much remuneration these people should be paid? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thought that maybe this Bill was going to sort out for us or solve for us once and for all, who registers the media organizations or agencies that we have in this country. Who actually registers them? In my view, that is the crux of the matter, to the extent that there exists newspapers in this country whose origin and addresses are unknown, and they are operating in this country. If you open a business today, you have no licence and you are not paying taxes, the Government or any responsible arm of the Government will come and close it tomorrow. Therefore, I would have expected the Minister to go a step further and tell us who are going to register the media. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I recall that during the referendum, when the competition between the banana and orange teams was so hot, one of our vernacular stations was shut down by the Government. Therefore, when people think of regulation, we fear that, probably, the Government may want to use its power to control certain stations. The station was shut down for no apparent reason because it was talking in our own vernacular and telling people certain facts, which we believed were true, then it was shut down! When the Standard Group offices were raided, of course, it was not the right channel! Therefore, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would have expected this Bill which it has, in some way, to provide a forum from where if certain individuals, including Ministers and so forth are aggrieved, they can have a forum from where they can air their views. But like I have said before, it is the failure by the media to act on certain complaints that has prompted people to imagine that they are unable to do it themselves. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, today, hon. Maore talked about the reason the media is irresponsible. If you look at the new newspaper which came out today and which quoted our colleague here in the headlines--- Being a Catholic, that paper should not be allowed even in the streets! The Nairobi Star said that Dr. Kibunguchy assisted nuns to perform abortion! For us in the Catholic fraternity, that is unacceptable and it is an abuse of our religious rights. That is a newspaper that was advertised that it was going to hit the streets in a big way only to read the headline saying that our nuns have abortions being performed by one of our own Assistant Ministers here. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, such stories, whether they are true or not, must not form the headlines of any worthy newspaper in the Republic of Kenya. It is unacceptable. While we appreciate that the media has a right to inform but it also has a right to responsibility. They must be responsible to this country and to themselves. That is why I would have wanted us to put in the law that the Media Owners Association must subscribe to certain regulations that will ensure that their journalists are paid proper salaries. This is to ensure that they do not go an extra mile to extract some extra money from people so that they can write a story. They should not extract July 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2183 money from certain quacks. We are not saying this just as stories, they are facts. How many hon. Members have had their stories not printed or published because they have failed to give a few shillings to journalists! Those are facts that must be said in this House. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. If you cannot give a journalist Kshs1,000, then he or she cannot cover you or your story. What a shame! Then they call hon. Members corrupt. They say that hon. Members are corrupt and they steal time. When you give a very nice story and you have not bought them lunch, they will not cover you. When somebody says \"nonsense\" - allow me to use that term - they will publish his story because he or she has been given Kshs1,000. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, you cannot blame the journalists because they are paid very little money. Why can the Media Owners Association (MOA) not, in its own regulations--- That is what they fear, they do not want to be regulated because they want to pay peanuts to these Kenyans who work day and night to get a story so that the media owners can get a fat cheque at the end of the month. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would have expected the Minister to go an extra mile to tell us that no media agency will be owned more than 50 per cent by one person. The reason why they can arm-twist a journalist is because some of the media houses are owned solely by one person. Therefore, they will always have their way. Kenyans have a right to use the media that we have but the media must be seen to be fair to every Kenya. Therefore, in future, the Minister should re-look at this issue. If you have more than 50 per cent ownership in a media you should sell the rest to Kenyans so that there is some resemblance and you cannot arm-twist these young Kenyans who are working hard everyday to earn a living, only to be paid peanuts. That is why they have to go an extra mile. Hon. Members had to be paid well because we had the same problems. You could not make your ends meet. That is why we are well paid now. These fellows should also be paid. Since the owners have refused to do so--- I do not understand why the media sometimes do not strike in this country. Why can they not strike? I am surprised that they have what we call Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ). I did not know that there exists such a union. If it exists, what does it do for its people? What does it do for its workers? If it exists, do these workers subscribe to it? Do they give it money, and for what? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, while we respect the media, it must respect us as well. They must respect hon. Members, Kenyans and everybody else. The media is very happy to highlight to the public images of hon. Members when they are asleep. They become so excited. What is so interesting about that? This House sometimes becomes very hot especially when everybody is around. Of course, you will have to read the Budget anyway. So the hon. Member will doze off for a while. Then that becomes the best story that there is in the world and they are so excited about it. There is no excitement about it! The failure of journalists to be responsible is forcing everybody to think that we must regulate them. As I said before, I do not believe that we can, but to the extent that they cannot, then the Minister is trying to do some justice. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, therefore, I want to urge the Minister to hold one final forum with the media where some of us, hon. Members, can be invited so that we can listen to what they would want us to do. We should give them a time-span or limit. If they want two months so that they can change, let us give them that. If they cannot regulate themselves after that, we would have given them a yellow card and then we give them a red card after that. I fear a situation where they refuse to nominate people and then we are back to square one. We want to pass a good law. Right now, this cannot be implemented because we are forcing people to appoint individuals into a council. We must all agree. With those very many remarks, I want to beg the Minister to withdraw it for a while and then we shall go and discuss it in another forum. There is no hurry in Africa and in Kenya."
}