The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has rejected media reports suggesting that it cleared Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma and Busia Governor Paul Otuoma over remarks that had been subjected to investigations.
In a statement, the commission said such reports misrepresented its determinations and created the impression that the two leaders had been summoned to have their remarks “sanitised.”
The NCIC said its findings against both leaders were adverse.
According to the commission, Kaluma’s speech was found to be “intemperate, ambiguous and dangerous in its reasonably understood meaning,” creating an appreciable risk of political intimidation.
In Otuoma’s case, the commission said his remarks were threatening and exclusionary in context, and were likely to stir hostility against residents and traders perceived as outsiders on the basis of their ethnic or national origin.
The commission said it subsequently issued immediate cessation notices against the two respondents and directed corrective measures, including public clarification, withdrawal or correction of harmful messaging and participation in peace engagements at their own reasonable cost.
“The Commission neither endorsed nor excused their language,” NCIC chairman Bishop Dr Kepha Nyamweya Omae said.
The commission said the determinations were reached after investigations and consideration of the respondents’ defences, in accordance with the National Cohesion and Integration Act, the Constitution and relevant legal authorities.
It cautioned that reporting only that the two leaders had been “cleared” gave the public an incomplete account because it failed to distinguish between the commission’s adverse findings, the statutory outcome and the corrective measures imposed.
The NCIC also defended its use of conciliation, saying Section 61(2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act requires the commission, where it is satisfied after investigation that a person has contravened Part III of the Act, to make reasonable efforts to conciliate the matter.
It said the preventive resolution in the Kaluma matter was therefore part of a statutory process and should not be portrayed as favouritism or an attempt to sanitise harmful speech.
The commission further said both determinations provide that if conciliation is formally found to have failed to achieve a satisfactory resolution, appropriate compliance notices may be issued under Sections 56 and 57, with enforcement governed by Section 58.
It stressed that the immediate cessation notices remain in force during the process.
The NCIC called on media organisations that published or broadcast what it described as misleading characterisations to issue corrections and give them prominence comparable to the original reports
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