How Treasury's Sh864m debt is crippling media houses

Dagoretti South MP John Kiarie. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

The National Treasury is on the spot over an estimated Sh864 million owed to media houses, which has affected their operations.

Yesterday, National Assembly Committee on Communication, Information and Innovation questioned lack of a definite strategy to settle the pending bills, after the National Treasury said it is still in the verification process.

The MPs, led by Committee Chairman Dagoretti South MP John Kiarie, said the persistent delays in paying pending bills could be a disservice to the government and there is need to pay once and for all.

"How much do you owe media houses, if you do not have specifics, tell the committee so that we can engage to a point you give us specific answers," Kiarie said.

Mr Kiarie met with Broadcasting and Telecommunication Principal Secretary Stephen Isaboke and Government Advertising Agency (GAA) Director Michael Okidi among other ministry officials.

"The money owed to media houses are historical pending bills, which were taken to the National Treasury for clarification and verification and we have been following it up," Okidi told the committee.

But Kiarie said: "The question is, these media houses, actually professional practitioners who are Kenyans, it would be wrong for you to appear before Parliament and we do not put you to task about owing Kenyans money, when you hold back money you are crippling their businesses and some of these careers are being killed."

The PS and Okidi said they are following the issue up and was optimistic that the verification, which they say they followed up last month, will be completed to pave way for payment. Further, the committee questioned the working structure of GAA observing that in its current form, there may not be value for money since it lacks critical components like audit bureau of circulation, digital media, innovation and research department, creatives, monitoring and evaluation, production and operations departments.

The committee said the fact that GAA handles public sector advertising, it should have a better strategy, even as they questioned whether there is value for money in placing advertisements in one newspaper once a week.

The MPs also wanted to understand how GAA ensures the information advertised once a week gets to the target audience across the country, despite the agency saying it has saved money in adopting the current structure.

"Under the current contract, we are saving about Sh758 million annually given that we pay Sh9 million a week compared to Sh24 million under the old contract. The annual expenditure for the old contract was Sh1.19 billion but now it is at Sh432 million," Okidi explained.

But Kiarie called for a proper and 'fit for purpose' GAA, saying a proper one requires at least 17 robust departments.

"GAA has not proven its worth and necessity yet. It has to be properly set up so that it can even draw money from the Exchequer. There has to be a proper set up for strategy and research and has to go with today's realities. It cannot be a GAA without a media planning department. The guesswork at GAA should end. Formulate a proper and fit for purpose entity because what you are doing now does not help the government," Kiarie said.