Murang'a County To Have Its Own TV Station?

The ink in previous blog on the challenges that will face county governors in this new era is yet to dry and the manifestation of the same is coming to the fore. I will not dwell to much on other counties but rather, i will try and focus on the challenges facing my home county of Murang'a.

My first shot is on the announcement yesterday by the Governor that he will make the establishment of a TV station by the county a priority. He backed this with an explanation that the county needed to market itself and disseminate information to both investors and residents through a channel that it controls. My grouse with this line of reasoning, which i had expounded in my previous post, is that the government has place on the business table because while you would think that you are creating employment in this manner, you are actually stiffing it. The government is only supposed to create an enabling environment through policies that are business friendly so as to attract private enterprise to come in.

On the matter of government involvement in media, there are countless examples of flops in this. In the USA, the government there has a station C-SPAN and VOA which very few Americans bother watching since the private media does a better job of informing the populace in an entertaining manner. In Kenya, we have KBC which is funded by the taxpayers but which is not very popular. My point in all this is that for you to effectively inform the public, you look for the medium which is preffered by a majority and used it to get the message across, besides, if the urge is to use local stations which are in touch which the residents, we have Mururi and Kangema FM stations for that.

While the Governor was announcing this " Loft Dream" for Murang'a, Citizen TV had a feature on alcoholism in the county and the fact that we have the highest mean age in the whole country. So Mr. Governor, here you have something that you can sink your teeth into; fight alcohol abuse in the county and find means of attracting the young people of Murang'a back home to develop it. One thing am sure about, having " their own" TV station is not one of them.

While other Governors such as Dr. Alfred Mutua are busy organising investor conferences, we are thinking of a Tv stations