Mombasa Road threw the mother of tantrums on November 8.
“Load of hot air: Murkomen fails to give SGR deal,” The Standard headline yelled.
“False start: Transport CS sensationally announced the government had made public the Standard Gauge Railway contract between Kenya and China but it turned out to be bits and pieces of the pact. Apparently, he needs Chinese permission to make it public.”
Fundi wa thermos busy at work under a tree in El Wak on the Somali border could have heard The Standard editor clicking and ranting in a rage from Mombasa Road.
Senior writer Nzau Musau gave up any attempts to hide his disgust. “On Sunday evening, Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen joined the fray of the bulging list of senior government officials playing games with the Kenyan public on the actual content of the Standard Gauge Railway project details,” he fulminated.
“Despite promising to lay bare the hitherto hidden contract, Murkomen hastily posted on Twitter three front-pages of three agreements, and avoided the elephant in the room – the commercial contract.”
Yet in its editorial the same day, the paper praised Murkomen for spilling the beans. “The finer details of Kenya’s closely-guarded Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) deal have been revealed and, rightfully so, ignited a political storm”.
The Standard’s tantrum was also a 360-degree turn from its coverage of Murkomen the previous day. Its splash screamed, “Truth on SGR billions”.
The “special report” spread out on two pages said: “Now The Standard can reveal the details of the contract that will shed light on the individuals who negotiated the deal on behalf of the country, what we were meant to get as locomotives, the payment schedules and a skewed agreement that appears to favour the Chinese government at the expense of the taxpayers”.
Earth-shattering scoop.
“This is a story of how not to be transparent, corner cutting, failure and eventual slavery. This is a story of the noose that keeps tightening around the necks of Kenyans,” The Standard pontificated in righteous indignation.
The next day, Mombasa Road was calling all that a “load of hot air”. How can a national newspaper behave like this?
Picture this: Senior journalists seated comfortably in their swivel chairs in the newsroom scrolling through Twitter waiting for a Cabinet Secretary to post a secret document so that they can write their exposé. Shouldn’t they, instead, hit the ground and grab the document from wherever on Earth it is hidden?
Kenyans are entitled to know everything about that secret Chinese pact. It is their money contained therein. They will repay the loan.
Democracy is about open government. Freedom and independence of the media is guaranteed by the Constitution. Citizens are entitled to information held by the state, and the government is under obligation to publish any important information.
So, what stopped the media all these years from grabbing the SGR pact from wherever it was hidden and publicising it? Isn’t that the job of the Fourth Estate, exposing what some people want to hide?
Ahem, we will tell you what: laziness.
The common practice in Kenyan journalism is to reproduce what the big people say, without even bothering to verify. Or throwing tantrums when the big people didn’t say what scribes prayed for. Independent investigation is the exception. Journalistic research is typically looking for people to tell you things, not looking for the things yourself.
On November 9, the Daily Nation did what we are talking about here. “SGR saga: The ‘dirty’ details Murkomen did not disclose”, the headline stated (p.12).
“The undisclosed contracts that the Nation has obtained were signed towards the tail end of the Mwai Kibaki administration and accelerated by the Jubilee regime immediately after taking power, despite sharp protests from various government agencies and certain quarters within [Kenya Railways Corporation]”, the report said.
“Despite the government’s contractual inability to disclose the contracts [non-disclosure clauses of the pact], the Nation can report that the deals were not only rushed but were made with a clear intention to hand the whole SGR project to [China Roads and Bridges Corporation] without avenues for oversight”.
The Nation spent the next few days spilling the beans on the SGR contracts.
That’s what good journalism does. Or should we award Mombasa Road for throwing tantrums and bashing Murkomen?
See you next week!
