It takes courage, and a brave face, to be Dr Alfred Mutua, the Government spokesman. But he has a job to do. Whatever the job, for the public does not know his key performance indicators, he is cheapening it, nibbling incessantly at its potential for being a credible public office.

The tragedy is that Mutua’s office continues to spew propaganda and raw lies to a public intelligent enough to tell the difference between fact and fiction.

Last year, Mutua vehemently denied, even in the face of incriminating evidence that Administration Police had been posted as PNU election agents in Nyanza. This has been confirmed, but Mutua still fights against evidence.

Mutua’s latest, and equally ridiculous, foray is the claim some journalists have been compromised to malign President Kibaki.

Mutua claims to know the cadre of journalists that has been bribed. He also claims he knows the paymaster of those who have the spurious assignment of "tarnishing the good name of His Excellency".

And how did he know this? Mutua claims some journalists have confessed to him that, a "Mr Ahmed" has assigned them the criminal duty of being pens for hire.

He claims his informers confessed to him they have been "given bribes to carry out an agenda depicting President Kibaki as a participant of planning post-election violence (sic)".

The unnamed journalists told him "headlines, commentaries, story angles and anti-Kibaki focus have been paid for".

Mutua made the allegation in a statement on Thursday, addressed to ‘Media Houses Management and Editors’. We find this claim irresponsible, coming from a civil servant paid by the public to facilitate citizens’ right to know.

Mutua’s claim against unnamed, but a defined cadre of media workers, discloses a prosecutable offence. Yet there is no evidence Mutua has reported the allegations to the police. And he showed no evidence he would.

Yet it is easy to tell the pre-emptive intention of Mutua’s characteristic outburst: He is on assignment to intimidate those who would want to read critically into the report on post-election violence, released last week.

The Waki Report claims that there was a meeting at the "highest level of Government" to plan revenge attacks in Naivasha and Nakuru in January. The report says the meeting took place in State House. The report also blames the President for escalating national disunity and cites Kibaki’s failure to be the symbol of unity.

The findings have nothing to do with journalists, but the Press has every right to critically report and ask leading questions around the claims.

The questions Mutua fears would be asked must be asked of the President as the Commander-in-Chief. The President needed to know about the chaos, and the people need to know what he knew, and what he did with this knowledge.

This is the umpteenth time Mutua is spreading such propaganda. In 2005, having arrived a year or so earlier, he made similarly unsubstantiated claims against journalists.

He then said he had evidence that some journalists had been paid to malign the Government. He promised to publish the list of journalists-for-hire. Three years later, Mutua has not done that. Whether he is talking about the same list or another one only he knows.

We challenge Mutua to act on what he knows or stop cheapening what should otherwise be a critical and respectable office.

Of the President, citizens must ask questions for he is the Head of State, and the State is the protector of public security.