Citizen TV news anchor, Waihiga Mwaura, was forced to apologize on air after a court directed the Royal Media Services-owned television station to issue an apology over a story it aired in 2019.
On Tuesday night, December 14, as part of the bulletin anchored by Waihiga, Citizen TV issued an apology to Alfred Omayo over an expose that was aired on March 31, 2019.
The High Court found that Citizen TV carried a story dubbed "Cheating teachers cartel duped hundreds of jobless teachers in Nyanza" which painted one Alfred Omayo in bad light.
According to the High Court, the allegations made against Omayo in the expose were tantamount to defamation and Citizen TV was ordered to issue an apology during their night broadcast.
"Citizen TV carried an investigative feature titled Cheating teachers cartel duped hundreds of jobless teachers in Nyanza. In the story, allegations were made against Mr Alfred Omayo Michael. The High Court that those allegations were defamatory of Alfred Omayo Michael.
"He is entitied to an apology by Citizen TV. We hereby tender our unreserved apology to Alfred Omayo Michael over the said allegations. We regret any damage or loss that the allegations may have caused to him," Mwaura stated.
Citizen TV had aired the expose of an alleged cartel operating in parts Nyanza that had been duping unknowing job-seeking teachers into giving thousands of shillings, ostensibly to get appointment letters from the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
The investigative feature alleged that the cartel would even post these teachers to schools with fake letters, only for the victims to be left feeling cheated and broke.
During the investigation, Citizen TV discovered that the cartel in question would ask for Ksh80,000 or more depending on where the teachers wanted to be posted and the qualification levels.
The cartel would even go ahead and allocate a new TSC number to the investigating journalist after they found the TSC number the journalist was using to be incorrect.
TSC, through its head of communications, Kihumba Kamotho, admitted that it was aware of the unlawful letters and had reported several of them to police.
Kamotho also went ahead and dismissed allegations that some TSC officials were part of the scheme and that they were facilitating the cartels who have been fleecing poor Kenyans.
