On May 24, President Uhuru Kenyatta opened the revived Kenya Meat Commission at Athi River and handed over the management of the parastatal to the Kenya Defence Forces. A news report on KBC Channel 1 Darubini at 7pm said the President ordered the new management to pay livestock suppliers within 72 hours. KMC had previously failed farmers, some waiting for up to four years to get paid, he said.
KBC journalists entirely ignored the elephant in KMC. The High Court ruled that Uhuru’s transfer of the parastatal last year from the Ministry of Agriculture to KDF is illegal. Judge Anthony Mrima gave Attorney General Kihara Kariuki 90 days to rescind the transfer.
How should the media report an event like this one, where a court order has been disregarded? Journalism advances the rule of law, which means adherence to the legally established order of doing things. Everyone is subject to the law.
KTN Prime carried the same story under the headline, “Executive impunity: President Uhuru opens KMC despite court order”. The station said, “The executive arm of government is yet again at loggerheads with the Judiciary. The latest bone of contention is the launch of the refurbished Kenya Meat Commission factory by President Uhuru Kenyatta despite an existing court order barring the same. This adds to a growing list of court decisions that have been defied by the executive”.
Reporter Emmanuel Too told viewers that, “the Kenyatta administration has seen a blatant disregard of a long list of court orders”. He interviewed Law Society of Kenya President Nelson Havi and lawyer Danstan Omari who deplored the trend. KTN did not carry a single word by the President at KMC. The whole story was about violation of court orders.
Citizen TV dwelt on the details of the parastatal’s revival. Faisal Ahmed in a piece to camera reported that, “The launch of the Kenya Meat Commission under the Ministry of Defence is set to introduce a culture of discipline and efficiency to the commission that has been dogged with issues to do with corruption in the past”. He mentioned the court order in passing towards the end of his story.
“Defiant Uhuru reopens KMC plant despite court ruling,” the Nation screamed (May 25, p.10). The story muted the President’s speech. The entire point was: “The order on KMC’s transfer to the military is among several others that President Kenyatta has ignored, amplifying a public clash with the Judiciary”.
Kimathi Street detailed some of those orders, interviewed three lawyers on the executive’s contempt for the courts and reported that a five-judge bench found the President failed Chapter Six of the Constitution on Leadership and Integrity by spearheading efforts to amend the Constitution under BBI. The government is appealing that ruling.
The Standard carried the President’s speech under the headline, “Revamped meat agency targets export market” (p.8). Mombasa Road gave the court order quashing the transfer of KMC a brief mention that misled readers. The President’s transfer of KMC to KDF last year “has been contested in court”, the paper said. No. In fact, the court has ruled on the case.
Be the judge: Which of these stories do you think fulfils the media’s mandate to hold power to account in the public interest?
And while we are on bold journalism that speaks truth to power, the People Daily on May 24 carried a full-page story headlined, “Youthful MPs break promise, deliver shame”. It is a story that has been waiting for ages to be told. PD named names.
“If they are not being rated poor performers, they are getting convicted over drunkenness, fighting or appearing at events drunk, being arraigned in court over misuse of firearms, fraud, hate speech and violence, being kicked out of Parliament for misbehaving or turning out to be motor mouths who shamelessly spew hatred on behalf of their masters…”
Journalism must be bold. Or it is nothing. Call a spade a spade.
