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| Government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura does not appear for TV interview |
Government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura was a no-show for a Citizen TV interview he had requested to be on. Citizen TV’s Yvonne Okwara (pictured left) was to interview government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura (right) on Tuesday evening. The latter was a no-show. Mwaura was to be hosted by Yvonne Okwara in The Explainer show on Tuesday evening, July 2. Why Isaac Mwaura was to be on Citizen TV The subject of the show was the anti-government protests. He, however, failed to show up despite earlier sharing a poster to publicise the interview. Yvonne suggested Mwaura had not tendered an explanation as to why he did not show up for the interview. The show would go on regardless, she declared. “We had every intention to host the government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura. This interview was at his request, which came late this afternoon, early evening. We granted his request for an interview on The Explainer, and the person chooses not to be here to speak to the situation in the country? The Explainer must go on,” an apparently irritated Okwara remarked. Mwaura has always strived to counter the narratives of alleged government misdeeds and maladministration carried in the media. The BBC goes after William Ruto Late last year, he moved to denounce a publication run by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in which President William Ruto’s presumed governance miscalculations had been highlighted. BBC headlined the story as “William Ruto: The ‘tax collector’ president sparking Kenyan anger”. The gist was the tax regimes imposed on the already overtaxed Kenyan citizenry by the government. According to the publication, Kenyans had grown disdainful of their president owing to his style of leadership, which was characterised by inflated taxation and wasteful spending in the face of a limping economy. To bail itself out, the article based its contents on statistics from various credible sources. For instance, the BBC cited the Controller of Budget’s recent findings which showed billions had been gobbled up in domestic and foreign travel. It also referenced a report by the Federation of Kenyan Employers (FKE), which showed that over 70,000 private-sector jobs had been lost amid a drastic rise in operating costs and the closure of some businesses. Isaac Mwaura faults the BBC In a rebuttal, the government spokesperson argued the publication was in bad faith. Mwaura sought to exonerate the government of the shortcomings claimed by the BBC, saying much had been accomplished during Ruto’s tenure in office. Citing the World Bank findings, Mwaura flagged as untrue the assertion that Kenya was experiencing hyperinflation. Seeking to justify the existing tax regimes, the spokesperson explained that Kenyans were seeking to be self-reliant by raising own revenue at the expense of procuring debts to fund development in the country. He, however, pointed out that the taxation in Kenya, a third-world country in the global south, was below par compared with developed economies like the United Kingdom.
by Kai Eli