KBC on its knees over lack of funding

Written By:Judith Akolo,    Posted: Thu, Mar 03, 2011

The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation - KBC is being starved of public funding. Information and Communications PS Dr Bitange Ndemo says lack of funding is impacting negatively on the ability of the national broadcaster to execute its mandate as the main source of public information. Ndemo and Information Minister Samuel Poghisio who appeared before the Parliament departmental committee on Energy and Communication Thursday said the national broadcaster has been on its knees financially over lack of funding by the government. "The national broadcaster is virtually bankrupt, and this is not their making, but the refusal by Treasury to release funding to KBC is the main problem," said Ndemo. The PS said KBC is in huge debts after past governments pushed it into buying obsolete medium and short wave equipment from Japan. The PS asked the Committee to assist the Corporation by urging Treasury to fund it and also to write off all the debts the Corporation incurred on behalf of the past government for it to begin on a new slate. "The corporation acted as a dumping ground for the Japanese government when they made the Corporation take medium and shortwave equipment, that has led them to incur debts," said the PS. Television Programs Manager Monica Wacheke who represented the Managing Director Waithaka Waihenya at the meeting said the KBC is spending a lot of money on medium wave equipment which is used entirely to broadcast vernacular languages. She noted that the national broadcaster is now forced to operate as a public cum commercial entity in order to meet its financial obligations. "KBC operates like a commercial cum public entity, which is not supposed to be the case," she said. And while responding to questions on the expenditure of some Kshs 200 million that was earmarked for use in the digital migration process, Ndemo said only Kshs 164 million was released yet the project requires over Kshs 4 billion to completely rollout. The PS noted that it was wrong for the commercial broadcasters to cast aspersions at the deal between Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and Smart TV. He noted that with set top boxes any one can access any signal which was the main aim the International Telecommunications Union - ITU came up with the requirement for the whole world to migrate to digital television for the benefit of the public all over the world. He said some individuals were frustrating efforts by the government to roll out digital broadcasting for fear of loss of revenue flows which are primarily sourced through analogue broadcast and not digital. "It will be very sad for Kenya to go back to the ITU to seek an extension all because some people do not want to accept that the world is migrating to digital broadcasting," said Ndemo. The new constitution obligates the exchequer to fully fund the operations of the national broadcaster. SOURCE:KBC on its knees over lack of funding http://bit.ly/eiQJap

 

Yimber Gaviria, Colombia