Role of the media in question as Board suspends gambling pay bills

 The suspension of 70 MPESA pay bills that were run on radios and TV stations without license and authority from Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) puts to task the place of responsible journalism in Kenya even as profit margins reduce over economic slump and Covid-19 pandemic.

The Media have a role to protect their listeners and viewers from content that is likely to harm them. Part of the audience here are children.

There are also adults who are not conversant with what to avoid when they tune in their broadcast channels. They too need to be protected.

BCLB CEO Peter Mbugi told the National Assembly ICT committee that the board had “directed Safaricom PLC to suspend the …pay bill numbers on diverse dates between December 2020 and August 2021”.

The board need to partner more with the Communications Authority (CA) to curb unauthorised advertisements appearing in the media.

While there are gambling companies working within the law, the bad ones need to be removed from the industry to ensure sanity is promoted all the time.

The media cannot escape blame in the whole charade of unscrupulous gambling since it is their channels which were used to air the messages.  They should remain within the law in their broadcasting and scrutinize fake gambling companies who are essentially out to dent pockets of the public as well as other wrongs.

By EDITORIAL