President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday morning, during a breakfast meeting at State House, told off local media houses over continued negative coverage but maintained he was not worried about being challenged.
The president appealed to the media to not only report on failures in service delivery and governance but also give equal prominence and appreciation of achievements made.
He made the remarks during the meeting to congratulate key players in his government after Kenya moved 19 places up to rank 65th worldwide in respect to ease of doing business.
"How you speak of our country will always be a reflection of how we are perceived out there. Kenya is changing, we expect more and the fourth estate and all of us should appreciate what has been done," noted President Kenyatta.
He went on to state that it was unfortunate that in most cases, media houses only carried complaints and criticism as headlines, while most of the positive stories and gains made by the country were being ignored.
"We can not always focus on complaints without appreciating what has been done. Sometimes it is frustrating when all you can do is hear complaints from the fourth estate. There's never anything good, please I want you to remember there are a lot of people who are doing a lot to move this country forward," observed President Kenyatta.
Kenyatta discouraged the media from highlighting what he termed as animosity and profiling the country for divisiveness, maintaining that he will not stop calling out members of the Fourth Estate.
He went on to add, "As a government, we are not worried about being challenged, you can say whatever you want about me but if you ignite a fire in Kenya, you are burning it not for Uhuru Kenyatta but for yourself and 40 million others. Let us criticize positively with the view of getting solutions."
The Head of State celebrated his government for strides made in supporting businesses and positioning of the country as a top investment destination appealing to the media to "put the country forward always."
He congratulated CS Aden Mohammed for spearheading the country enterprise and business sector during his four-year-term at the Trade docket and asked him to continue propelling the same agenda even after being moved to a different sector.
