The National Assembly’s Committee on Parliamentary Broadcasting and Library has today kicked off a 3-day tour of the Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation (KBC) broadcasting installations in the coastal region.
The tour is geared towards establishing the foot-print of the national broadcaster’s countrywide infrastructure. The comes in the wake of Parliament ‘s plan to extend its partnership with KBC to enhance the countrywide coverage of proceedings in both Committees and the Plenary.
The Committee has in the last one year been working towards a project on the establishment of a Parliamentary Broadcasting station, so as to promote a more informative and objective coverage of Parliamentary activities.
Earlier this year, the National Assembly approved a Report of the Committee recommending the establishment of Parliamentary Television and Radio stations.
The report proposed that in this endeavor, Parliament relies on the national infrastructure of KBC to run the station on a 24/7 basis.
In the development of the aforementioned report, the Committee received views from stakeholders and experts in the broadcasting sector, among them the Communication Authority ( on the broadcasting regulatory regime); the National Government-Constituencies Development Fund (with regard to content), the Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation, the British Broadcasting Corporation among others.
In the last several years, Parliament has been keen to implement Article 118 of the Constitution of Kenya, with regard to facilitating citizen engagement in the parliamentary agenda.
Further, Members are interested in establishing a platform that will specialise in Broadcasting Parliamentary activities both for information and to offer parliamentary education, as opposed to the current situation where the lawmakers have to rely on broadcasting channels that serve competing interests with regard to content generation.
Today the Committee toured stations situated in Kilifi County. Tomorrow the team is scheduled to head to Kwale County to undertake a similar exercise.
Speaking during today’s visit, the Committee Chairperson, Hon.Justus Kizito noted that KBC’s vast infrastructure across the country has been pivotal to the growth of the broadcasting industry.
A number of national and international broadcasters rely on KBC’s national footprint to carry out their operations. He called on the government to support KBC in exploiting its potential.
“With its vast footprint, KBC is a sleeping giant that requires all our support to reinvigorate itself”, he noted.
Earlier in the morning, the Members paid a courtesy call on the Coast Regional Commissioner Mr. John Elungata who called on the legislators to support the national broadcaster in its renewed strategy after the station relaunched recently.
