ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru and Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki are among individuals expected to face MPs on Thursday morning over an attempt to revoke the appointment of a Media Council of Kenya (MCK) board member.
An invitation by National Assembly Senior Deputy Clerk Jeremiah Ndombi states that Mr Mucheru and Mr Kihara are required before the House Committee on Communication, Information and Innovation to explain the circumstances behind the removal of Ms Tabitha Mutemi.
“The committee has considered the matter and deemed it necessary to invite you for a meeting to deliberate on the said complaint,” Mr Ndombi says in separate letters of February 24 and March 1.
Mr Ndombi notes that the committee chaired by Marakwet West MP William Kisang is acting on a February 2 complaint by Ms Mutemi, alleging an unlawful attempt by MCK Chief Executive Officer David Omwoyo to revoke her membership.
Also expected before the committee are Ms Mutemi, Mr Omwoyo, Kenya Editors’ Guild (KEG) President Churchill Otieno, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) acting CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan and Broadcasting Principal Secretary Esther Koimett.
On Monday, the KEG president warned that wars at the council are a danger to the independence of the media.
“All these developments are deeply disturbing as they ignore due process, and in particular the laid down mechanism for appointment and removal of MCK Council members,” Mr Otieno said. “This mechanism by itself underpins the independence of the MCK, and by extension, the independence of the media.”
The committee will also question Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) Secretary-General Erick Oduor and Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA) chair William Janak.
Mr Oduor was the chairman of the selection panel that recruited Ms Mutemi and other MCK board members in May 2019. The panel also included KEG and KCA representatives.
The February 24 letter inviting witnesses to the committee is copied to Mr Maina Muiruri, the MCK board chair, and Ms Kethi Kilonzo of Kilonzo and Company Advocates, who is representing Ms Mutemi.
The Office of Attorney-General was drawn into the matter after Ms Kilonzo accused it of authoring an advisory that Mr Omwoyo claimed to have used to remove Ms Mutemi from the board.
In a January 11 letter addressed to MCK board chair Maina Muiruri and copied to CS Mucheru, Mr Omwoyo said the secretariat would cease, with immediate effect, to recognise Ms Mutemi as a board member.
Mr Omwoyo bases his argument on the August 18, 2021 advisory opinion from the Attorney-General, claiming that by virtue of a corporate affairs and events manager at the IEBC, Ms Mutemi cannot sit on the board.
“Being the accounting officer of the Media Council of Kenya and in essence, a public officer, I am bound by the advisory of the Attorney-General,” Mr Omwoyo says.
But Ms Kilonzo’s complaint to the committee accuses Mr Omwoyo of targeting Ms Mutemi after she raised concerns over corporate governance and the misuse of the council’s funds.
“We write to implore you as the lawful offices and officers charged with the removal of any member of the MCK, to use your offices and your powers under the MCK Act to reverse the unlawful action,” Ms Kilonzo says in her letter to the National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi.
The letter was copied to Mr Mucheru, under whose ministry the MCK is domiciled.
Ms Kilonzo questions the legality of Mr Omwoyo’s actions, noting that the Media Council of Kenya Act “confers on our client security of tenure”.
She argues that this procedure was not followed and that the National Assembly should find Mr Omwoyo in violation of the law.
