Cabinet has approved the move to sell off land owned by the Postal corporation of Kenya or Posta to settle outstanding debt. The corporation plans Ksh7.9 billion to offset debts totaling Ksh7.2 billion. The sale is a condition for a public-private partnership and a potential listing at the NSE.
According to CS for Information, Communications and the Digital Economy William Kabogo, the move is key to reform the organization for the push to privatize it.
‘I have just received approval to sell off part of the land belonging to posta to settle their debt’, he told a gathering of editors in Mombasa at the 8th Kenya Editors guild annual convention.
According to the CS other state-owned corporations including KBC have received the cabinet nod to sell off their large tracts of land in prime areas to enable them settle old debt and hence enable them start their journey towards reforms.
The CS was a keynote speaker at the event, where he performed the official opening. It is held every year to enable the media industry in Kenya take stock of the events of the year and strategize toward the next. This year’s event was attended by hundreds of editors form across the country.
Kabogo has sometimes been at loggerheads with industry over reporting but set a conciliatory and warm tone at the convention, speaking in jest about caricatures that have tried to lampoon him at the helm of the industry.
‘There was a young man who came to my office and took a picture of me sitting down, and you know your trousers go up when you sit… and he said that is how I dress’, he said, ‘The next time we met, I had established a competition for memes and the journalist won one hundred thousand.’
The ministry has worked hard to reform the industry, especially kickstarting reforms at the national broadcaster KBC which has over 12,000 employees.
The minister alluded at the immensity of the reforms task, especially with resistance for internal stakeholders.
‘You know it gets hot at KBC when we take about reforms. But as I have told the CEO, Agnes Kalekye, we must see this through…
The national broadcaster remains a critical cog of the communications industry in Kenya playing a key role in providing broadcast services for remove communities, for education and for health, making its reform a key pillar for the current government.