Why CS Mucheru skipped Senate session on media shutdown, again

Information, Communication and Technology Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru has, within 48 hours, skipped  twice hearings of the Senate committee on ICT to explain the TV shutdown that followed the controversial Raila Odinga ‘oath’.

Mucheru was summoned to among other things explain the 10-day shutdown of four private TV stations; Citizen TV, Inooro TV, KTN News and NTV, the crackdown on journalists and transfer of Sh1 billion universal fund to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations from the Communications Authority.

The Communications Authority maintained the four television station had defied an order not to cover the now controversial live ‘swearing-in’ of Opposition leader Raila Odinga.

However, On Friday February 16, Mucheru failed to honour the summons citing other work engagements.

He sent a letter addressed to Senate Clerk Jeremiah Nyegenye and copied to the committee’s chairperson Gideon Moi and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua detailing his busy schedule as he was attending a Cabinet meeting.

“My failure to appear before the Senate Committee on ICT was due to unforeseen exigencies of duty. This office regrets the apprehension that the communication on my unavailability elicited within the committee,” the letter read in part.

It added, “In view of scheduled ministerial programmes, this office will be available to meet with the committee from February 26, 2018 onward”.

The Gideon Moi-led committee rescheduled the meeting for today.

When Mucheru failed to show up today, a section of the committee extended a message of goodwill, saying they invited him and did not want to take adversarial positions with him.

The committee has for the third time asked the Cabinet Secretary to appear before it on March 10, 2018 amidst growing criticism from a section of Jubilee legislators that the committee is investigating an issue before the courts.