In a bid to align public sector advertising services with the government’s policy to revitalize public sector entities, all government advertisements have been ordered to exclusively run on the state owned broadcaster, KBC.

All government agencies, independent commissions and public universities have been orders to withdraw advertisements from privately-owned radio and television stations.

This directive, comes a month after a similar move was made indicating that only the Star Newspaper would receive government advertisements barring independent print media, radio and television stations from receiving government revenue.

According to Principal Secretary in the State Department of Broadcasting and Telecommunications Prof. Edward Kisiang’ani  KBC’s extensive national network coverage will guarantee advertisers a nationwide reach.

The directive, according to Kisiang’ani, is in line with a Treasury circular issued on July 10, 2015, that communicated the Cabinet’s decision to centralize public sector advertising.

“Going forward, therefore, it has been deemed prudent to initiate measures to ensure that as public sector advertisers seek to access their target audiences through campaigns and other statutory announcements, the Government leverages on the provisions within its realm to revive and fully utilize its institutions.”

This circular aligns with the government’s aims to modernize KBC to become the premier national broadcaster in Africa, positioning it as the leading source of information in Kenya.

“In light of the foregoing, all public sector electronic (radio and television) advertisements from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that fall under the National Government, Independent Commissions and Public Universities shall be handled by the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) upon authorization by the Government Advertising Agency (GM),” Kisiang’ani said.

This move has however sparked uproar within the Media Owners Association, the Kenya Editors Guild (KEG), the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) among other media associations and are accusing President William Ruto’s government of unfairly targeting the already struggling media industry.