Airwaves regulator playing other people’s game

On Tuesday, the Communications Authority of Kenya’s Director-General Francis Wangusi and Information Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i squandered a golden opportunity to explain to Kenyans why they forcibly switched off the analogue broadcasting signal long before the world deadline.

The duo should have seized the opportunity to explain to Kenyans, since the majority are in the dark, why the government allocated a single foreigner more than 50 per cent of a resource it manages in public trust.

The two officials failed to explain to Kenyans why their actions seemed to be driven by bitterness rather than logic.

Dr Matiang’i was reported by the print media to have sought a session in camera in order to explain the ills committed by the media companies in regard to digital migration.

The two senior government officials met the parliamentary committee on Energy, Information and Communication which summoned them to find ways of resolving the current television broadcast debacle in the country.

Nothing substantial came out of the meeting since the government insisted that it was doing the right thing.

The media houses in this dispute — Nation Media Group, The Standard Group and Royal Media Services, under the umbrella of Joint Committee on Broadcasting — have since met the Senate Legal Affairs and Human Rights committee and appealed for a few more months to switch to digital broadcast.

CREDIBILITY AT STAKE

All said and done (or undone), to me, what is at stake is the credibility of the CA and that of the ministry and the Cabinet Secretary himself.

And the big question is: How will CA re-invent itself in order to do the enormous task of regulating broadcasting in the country, in line with the Constitution and other laws?

Already, Kenya’s ranking on freedom of media has plummeted by 10 positions and this definitely has more to do with switching off television for a week now. This has never happened in this country.

CA has the enormous task of ensuring the success of self-regulation of media, otherwise the government risks becoming unpopular in the world platform, which it wants to please by adhering to the deadline of digital migration.

CA needs to know that there are three major components of regulation — legislation, that is defining appropriate rules, secondly, enforcement, such as initiating actions against violators and thirdly, adjudication, which is deciding whether a violation has taken place and imposing an appropriate sanction.

GARGANTUAN TASK

The formulation of the Kenya Information and Communications Act 2013 and the Media Council Act 2013 were the first component of self-regulation in the country.

In fact we are yet to understand, at implementation stage, whether Kenya is going for self-regulation or co-regulation.

It is my contention that Kenya is slipping towards co-regulation, where the government’s hand is going to be felt more than that of the industry.

Therefore, this being the case, CA needs to redeem its image in the public so that it can gain trust to take Kenya to the next level of media regulation.

It is worthy pointing out that a regulator’s major objective is to implement a law and monitor compliance in order to penalise offenders. The laws we expect CA to oversee their implementation are the ones I have cited above and the Constitution itself.

A gargantuan task awaits CA, which includes the aligning of the two Acts with the Constitution, which raises questions on the independence of the body itself and whether it is the one envisaged by the Constitution.

That the Constitution guarantees freedom of media independent of government interference on one hand and recommends an independent body to regulate media creates room for a big debate in Kenya as to what this independent body is or ought to be.

The CA is playing other people’s game, and in a dirty manner. Whose interest is CA pursuing? Not public because I have not watched television for the last one week.

For the sake of common sense, it is CA which blocked, though momentarily, the importation of digital broadcasting equipment for Africa Digital Networks.

After the court ruling that the licence should be reinstated, CA and government knew pretty well that the three media houses had no digital equipment and went on to switch off the analogue.

A regulator should be friendly to industry players until there is evidence of non-compliance.

That is why it is important that the CA and ministry should move fast and create an image among Kenyans which will attract public support when doing the actual regulation of media.

Dr Bosire is a lecturer in journalism and media studies at The Technical University of Kenya. [email protected]