Journalists barred from county assembly

The county assembly has barred journalists from its premises after publishing stories on alleged malpractice among senior administrators.

Journalists were yesterday directed to get permission from the authorities before they could access any office in the precincts of the assembly.

“We have been given instructions to follow. No journalist should enter here unless cleared. If we allow you in, we risk losing our jobs,” said a security guard.

He added: “Since you came recently and covered staff protests, things have not been easy for us.”

The county assembly premises hosts departments of children, probation and co-operative developments, which can be accessed by anyone.

Journalists who were angered by the move challenged the assembly administration to respect the rule of law and freedom of the Press.

“The administration should uphold press freedom. We have been accessing the premises using our accreditation cards but we are surprised that since we carried stories on staff protests at the assembly, senior officials are now coming up with archaic rules,” said Victor Odhiambo, a journalist.

NEGATIVE PUBLICITY

County assembly commissioners, led by deputy sergeant-at-arms Christopher Abele, told journalists that the move was geared towards safeguarding the image of the assembly following negative publicity it has received in the past few days.

“We have had good relationship with the media but it went overboard on Monday when journalists covered protests by some employees within the premises. This raised a lot of queries about us and made us look unprofessional,” said Mr Abele.

Majority Leader Josephat Wandera, when contacted on phone, said he was not aware of the new regulations but linked the action to Monday’s incident.

NO COMMENT

Efforts to get a comment from the speaker Bernard Wamalwa and clerk Allan Mabuka were futile as calls to their mobile phones and text messages went unanswered.

On Monday, over 60 workers protested a move by the county assembly service board to second them to the executive after it emerged that the assembly had excess staff and the board acted contrary to the law.

The staff also cited corruption and nepotism in the recruitment. They also disclosed corrupt dealings involving mortgage allocations within the assembly.