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"id": 216409,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/216409/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Konchella",
"speaker_title": "The Minister of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons",
"speaker": {
"id": 322,
"legal_name": "Gideon Sitelu Konchella",
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"content": " Thank you, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, for giving me the opportunity to contribute on this very important Bill. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we know that the Fourth Estate is one of the pillars of our economic development. As we work towards the Vision 2030, we must have a responsible Press and one which is accountable to the people of Kenya and understands that the development of this country is the development of each and every one of us. The hon. Member who has just spoken before me alluded to what happened in Rwanda. I visited that country, and I saw what an irresponsible media can do to destroy society. Today, we are trying, through my own Ministry, to return the Rwandese back home. Some of them have been here for so long and they do not even know where to go because they have felt at home here in Kenya. They have felt at home here in Kenya because they have been taken care of. They have lived in peace and they are able to survive here. Indeed, when I spoke to them the other day when they were celebrating the Refugee Day, I told them that within the East African Community (EAC), we should actually not have any refugees because we are all East Africans now and that all our people should now work and live together wherever they want to. So, it means that, as Kenyans, we must have a law that will regulate and control the conduct of our media houses and journalists in conformity with the EAC even as we move towards developing the EAC. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other day, a number of journalists from a certain media house were sent home from Tanzania. In fact, one of the Kenyan media houses in Uganda was closed down for sometime. Why was it closed? They were closed because they were displaying the same arrogance and the same way journalists and the media do their work in Kenya. The way the Kenyan media works is not known anywhere in the world because they expose our weaknesses and ignorance. Of course, none of that is excusable, but surely we should protect our society. We should protect our people because we are a growing nation. Why are we saying that we are growing? If we are growing, we must grow together, learn together and educate each other. In the process of educating each other, we must then develop our nation and our people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, what happened in Rwanda should never happen anywhere in the world. When you hear people talking about Mt. Kenya, what are they talking about? Is there anything more special about the people of Mt. Kenya? These are nationals of this 2190 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 3, 2007 country who must be protected by law and respected by everybody. When people talk about the Luos, who are the Luos? They are the people of Kenya and we should be talking as a nation and State, and not as tribes. This is where we need a law to ensure that anybody, be they leaders or the media, who is trying to divide the people of Kenya through ethnicity, is punished by law. We are yet to see, in this Bill, the laws that will apply. I hope they will come in the form of regulations or amendments during the Committee Stage. I am happy to see that Clause 19 has actually been amended. It is about the Media Advisory Board. It states in part:- \"In the performance of its functions, the Board shall not be subject to the direction of or control of any persons or any authority.\" Surely, what about if they advise that pornography be shown to our children? As we see now in our country, when there is a problem anywhere in the country, they expose and show everything. That does not happen anywhere in the world in any civilised society except in Kenya. Why is this happening? So, the issue of self-regulating of the media houses and owners, and I think they should all be here, to me, is something that we must address very carefully, as lawmakers, to ensure that we do not allow people, whose motive is to make profit, to control or dictate the direction of the media and to decide the way we are going to expose our problems. We must protect this country and we must protect the weak. If you look at, for example, the problem of films--- One of the proposals is to classify films. What is sometimes shown to our children are actually things that should not be seen. This is because most of our youth are rebellious and they tend to do horrific acts. Why? It is because they are being shown things other people do and they adopt them because their minds are still young. It is the media that encourages these things. There are a lot of drugs in our schools. Why? It is because they are being reported in the media and everywhere. While I do not want to say that nothing should be reported, there should be responsibility and a way by which these things are reported. I believe that one of the issues that need to be addressed is, for example, if the media houses want to encourage responsibility within their editors, writers or correspondents within the districts, there must be a standard format of training of journalists and reporters within the whole Republic. This standard training should cover everybody so that by the time you are qualified to handle media matters, you have been trained and examined by a responsible council or authority to ensure that you are able to conform to the norms of your profession. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I say this because a lot of young people are being employed to report not only for the media houses, but also for the gutter Press. So, you will find people just writing stories for the sake of it and making money. Sometimes you are even forced to look for these people to give them money so that they do not do it. I think it is very wrong for things like these to happen in a nation that is developing and where the truth and lies are the ones that are selling the media, or the material being pedalled around so that leaders are made to, more or less, try and survive by trying to please writers and journalists. I think that is wrong. We must bring a law that will protect the media and whoever else needs protection in this country, because we are all developing as one nation and one people. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, \"self-regulating\" is a new terminology which came up just the other day. After the Bill was published, and everybody rushed around, saying: \"The media is going to die\", the terminology \"self-regulating\" came up. We agree that self-regulation should be done within the law, and be based on certain parameters, so that, regardless of whether the media regulates itself or not, it will not display, or write, certain things that may lead to destruction of the society. What is the purpose of a nation, for instance? The national interests of Kenya should be paramount to us and the media in whatever we do. The moral values of our society and the unity of the Kenyan nation should be the overriding factor in whatever we say or write. These are values which the Press should uphold, just as all July 3, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2191 leaders should do. So, when we say that the media should be self-regulating, it should do so within certain values of the society that everybody must respect. The practice of publishing pictures of children who have been subjected to inhuman treatment - thank God, we now have the Children Act to protect children - or broadcasting clips of people when they riot everywhere, should be stopped. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have almost 100 Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Kenya, which show such pictures all over the world in the course of soliciting for money worldwide, purportedly, for protection of children and the weak in society. However, all the individuals behind these NGOs do is to receive money, put it into their personal bank accounts and send it back to their countries of origin. The media is encouraging corruption by splashing such pictures, which NGOs use to solicit money internationally. The personalities behind NGOs use such pictures to show the world that there are problems in Kenya, and that people are being killed thus collecting a lot of money, which they use to destabilise this country and its society. So, after the enactment of this law, if one gains materially out of reports that are not true, one should be punished by law. These are some of the provisions we should include in this Bill, so that people who will take photographs of children and people who are dying and use them to earn money they do not account for, and come here to use that money for other purposes, can be punished by law. The Bill should provide for that, so that people do not profit out of our misery. I am yet to see the good development record of this Government being highlighted by the media. It is as if the media is non-existent when it comes to highlighting matters of development. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, leaders work so hard to develop their constituencies, but the media does not report such achievements, be it in a constituency of an hon. Member who is in the Government or one who is in the Opposition. Media people do not report development matters because it is not in the interests of their respective media houses to do so. Their interest is only in reporting destruction and problems, yet we know that we are doing a lot of good for this country. This country is developing. We are moving forward. So, can we have a media industry that will develop and move forward with the nation, so that Vision 2030 can be realised with the media being one of the pillars of the development of this country? Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, another issue I would like to comment on is the fact that, as East Africans, we tend to forget our traditional values. In Tanzania today, there are certain things you cannot say about the Head of State or the First Lady, because the society in that country has traditional values it upholds. There is respect you have to give to elders. However, in Kenya, we treat everybody equally, irrespective of whether one is a leader or an elder or a child. Why? Because we are losing our values. We are exposing ourselves to the West. We are adopting the worst values from the West. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, we want to tell our journalists that it is time for us to think again as a people and a nation, so that we report, not only in the print media but also broadcast on our television screens but also things that will add value to us as a society, but not to destroy us. We should not just ape what other people are doing. Having said that, I would like to, once again, say that I support this Bill and request the Minister to ensure that we have regulations, which will ensure that the problems we have now, in terms of exposure of our children to bad influence and incitement by leaders, does not continue to happen because we want to have a society which will be cohesive and accountable to its own people. Thank you."
}