Chiloba says CA cannot pull down content on pastor Makenzi

Communication Authority of Kenya CEO Ezra Chiloba before the Senate Ad Hoc Committee. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Communication Authority of Kenya CEO Ezra Chiloba told the Senate Ad Hoc Committee investigating the Shakahola deaths that there is no licensing category for religious broadcasting stations since they are licensed either as commercial or community broadcasters.

Chiloba who appeared before the committee Chaired by Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana said the government agency has so far issued 632 broadcast licences out of which 109 broadcasters are airing programmes exclusively categorized as religious and are expected to comply with set guidelines.

He revealed that the law does not give CA authority to deal with digital content after the Senators wanted to know why content related to Pastor Paul Makenzi had not been pulled down stating that this was due to most social media platforms being owned by companies based outside the country.

"What we are doing is putting up content together so that we can build up a case with international social media companies so that they can be able to pull down the content related with Pastor Makenzi and any other misleading religious content in the country," said Chiloba.

Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka said it was sad that CAK cannot deal with harmful content on the spot since besides Pastor Makenzi there were many other churches engaging in activities that end up misleading a section of Kenyans and they need to check on them to avoid a disaster.

Baringo Senator William Cheptumo expressed concern that the admission by CAK that it cannot pull down harmful content from various platforms on the spot means that the country is not in charge of its digital space which is dangerous for the country and those involved should not get away scotfree.

Nominated Senator Tabitha Mutinda said that the proliferation of harmful content in the social media platforms was posing great harm to the country and something urgent needs to be done to reverse the trend.

Chiloba told the Committee that the Good News Media (K) Times TV was licensed by the Communication Authority on September 2015 to provide Free Air Television broadcasting services with records showing that Paul Mackenzie and Shadrack Mutiso are the directors of Good News Media with 50 per cent shareholding each.

"Communication Authority of Kenya started logging Times TV Broadcast in Mombasa in April 2022 and noted that it was carrying broadcasting content of Pastor Ezekiel Odero of Newlife Communications with the licensee informing the authority that this had been the case since 2020," he said.

He told the committee that Pastor Ezekiel Odero of Newlife Communications further indicated to CA that he had plans to take over ownership of Times TV in 2020 after making partial payments however this did not materialize instead Newlife Communications was issued with its own license to broadcast as World Evangelism TV.

Chiloba noted that the content aired by Times TV from January to April 2023 did not feature any teachings of Makenzi and given that it aired content that demonstrated exorcisms when children are likely to be watching it was concluded that there was violation of guidelines on good taste and decency.

He told the committee that CA had issued a notice of violation of Times TV on April 27 for airing in appropriate content during the watershed period and other license conditions this being the second time that the station had been issued with a notice of violation after the one on September 29, 2020.

"With respect to World Evangelism TV associated with Pastor Ezekiel Odero, Communication Authority issued a notice a violation for airing inappropriate content during watershed period as well as notice of suspension of broadcasting licence and cease of broadcasting on April 27, 2023," said Chiloba.

The CA boss noted that on June 12, World Evangelism TV submitted to the Authority steps taken to prevent recurrence of violation and evidence of compliance with the license conditions after which the matter was reviewed by the agency and concluded that it had demonstrated compliance through rectification.