CS Mucheru Says Government is Not Interfering with the Media.
ICT Cabinet secretary Joe Mucheru has today warned that the government is not planning to interfere with the media.
Anthony Mutisya 
Mucheru was defending the government's decision to form a 15-member technical working committee to supervise the next local political debates.
Mucheru claims that the State will not be engaged in the appointment of moderators for the Local Language Media Debates, as well as the Gubernatorial, Senatorial, and Women Representative Debates, ahead of the August General Election.
“The Media Council and all these media affiliated organizations’ came to me and said ‘we have appointed these people to the taskforce’. Who am I to say no? I could not, because I know they would write again and say ‘the minister has refused,” the CS said.
He was speaking to journalists at the Connected Kenya Summit in Diani, Kwale County, where he also dismissed the outcry from media owners and practitioners over the appointment.
The Kenya Editors Guild had spoken out against the panel constituted by Information, Communication and Technology Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru to oversee political candidate debates.
The Guild, led by President Churchill Otieno, characterized the appointment as an attempt to exert control over the media, claiming that the CS lacks the authority to dictate how the media would cover the elections.
A picture of the 2013 Presidential Debate.
The group appointed by CS Mucheru is led Sammy Muraya with radio journalist Vincent Ateya, news anchor Mark Maasai, and Kenya Association of Manufacturers CEO Phyllis Wakiaga.
“The Gazette Notice can only be viewed as illegal and undemocratic and is tantamount to interference with the media coverage of the electoral process,” Otieno said.
“We have written to the CS seeking that he rescinds this decision in the interest of media freedom and let stakeholders in the co-regulatory framework to apply collegiality, acceptability and cooperation in a process that is a vital component in our democratic process,” Otieno added.
