William Ruto says as media seeks freedom, so is Moses Kuria free to express opinion

President William Ruto has downplayed degrading remarks against the media made by Trade CS Moses Kuria recently, saying the CS and others enjoy the freedom of speech and opinion.

This comes days after the Ministry of Investments, Trade, and Industry CS was at the center of a disagreement with media stakeholders after threatening to take extreme actions against one of the leading media houses.

Speaking in Naivasha, Nakuru County, where he was flagging the 2023 World Rally Championships, the president said he would do his part of defending press freedom in the country.

However, he adds that people like one of his CSs [Moses Kuria] enjoy freedom of speech and opinion hinting that Kuria could be speaking on his behalf.

"We must defend the free media, we must defend their right to criticise [and] to say whatever it is that they want to say, even to write propaganda, even to say the wrong things, even to write falsehood, you know, we must defend that right. But we must also defend the rights of those who hold the media to account or who call up the media. When the media goes rogue, we must also defend the rights of people like Moses Kuria to speak their minds the same way. We are defending the media to say all the things they want, including their own ones. Right," the president said.

"And I saw one journalist saying the President should defend us from Moses Kuria. That's fine. I will do my bit, but I want to ask them... who is going to defend me from Rogue media? Because I go through hell all the time. Yeah,"

Additionally, the president wants the media to tone down their language to foster unity among Kenyans.

"So I think we need we need a fair balance. Yeah, we need a fair balance. I think. If they are feeling pain, about what others say about it, you tell them there are people who feel pain when they write falsehoods about others. And I hope this will enable us to calibrate what we say either way, against other people, or other people. I think it will it will really bring us together," he adds.

Two days ago, CS Kuria launched a verbal attack on the Nation Media Group after the media house broadcast an expose that linked the CS to an alleged oil scandal.

In its report, ntv alleged that cabinet secretaries were behind the reduction in cooking oil prices leading to the loss of Sh5.6 billion from the public coffers.

In response, CS Kuria threatened the media organisation using unprintable words and threatened to sack heads of state agencies running advertisements with the Nation Media Group.

Media stakeholders and the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission condemned CS Kuria's utterances.