The issue of increased corruption in society has reached alarming levels with the media not escaping.
Concern has been raised that some journalist are being paid “facilitation fees” by politicians to publicize their stories.
These are problems Kenyan elections create that rarely get visibility: and one of them is the race of the media into graft. The corruption has allegedly reached a level where a politician has to pay the “facilitation fees” to even have their events covered.
Among the culprits also are the so called “bloggers”, some of whom run online news services.
This form of corruption is a serious offence and amounts to taking bribes, which under the Bribery Act, makes every journalist and politician thus involved liable to a fine of up to Kshs.5 million or 10 years in prison or both.
The media are the people’s watchdog, and trusted to inform the citizens and call out corruption, the bad apples among them included, instead of pursuing self-interest.
In a time, the country is headed towards the general elections and still fighting to stabilize the economy from the effects of Covid-19, members of the fourth state should be whistle-blowers and on the frontline to fight corruption.
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