Parliamentary Committee Grills Matiang’i, Wangusi Over Digital Migration

The two appeared to respond to queries on the contested digital migration which has caused an uproar across the political and social-economic divide.

Committee member Nicholas Gumbo accused CAK of waging a war against three media houses.

Ngumbo said that the move by CAK to swith off Citizen TV, which is under Royal Media Services, NTV and QTV, both under the Nation Media Group and KTN, which is under the Standard Media Group, was ill timed and in bad taste.

However, Mr. Wangusi said that the authority had prepared the three media houses on the switch off which they defied despite prolonged court battles.

He said that the digital migration must take off and the authority would not back off.

His sentiments were echoed by Mr Matiang'i who accused the three media houses of turning the matter to a political battle.

On February 13th, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that CAK gives back self provisioning licenses and digital frequencies to the media houses.

The three media houses had requested more time to install their digital infrastructure.

By Maureen Murimi