President William Ruto has urged government officials to read local newspapers to keep abreast of the latest developments in the country.

This is even as he continues to push for the death of the same newspapers by channeling government advertising to a single newspaper.

Ruto was speaking in Naivasha on Monday, February 19 at Lake Naivasha Resort where the he met the Cabinet and Members of Parliament and Senate, who have converged to take stock of the government’s performance and progress. 

The President was shocked to learn that some of the legislators were not aware of the plans to recruit some 2,500 nurses, which he said had been advertised in newspapers and he had also been talking about it during his meetings in various parts of the country.

“I have heard some of you say you are not aware. Where do you want me to stand to tell you? Which volume do you want so that you can hear?” he posed. 

“The (jobs) were advertised in the press, I have talked about this thing in every meeting. When you are seated those meetings, aren’t you supposed to find out where these vacancies are afterwards?” 

The Head of State took offense with the matter, noting that he had raised the issue in all the places he had visited and challenged the leaders to follow it up with the Health Cabinet Secretary. 

Ruto also announced that plans were underway to export more labourers abroad and identified Germany where the government had entered into a pact on job opportunities.

“Several counties need over one million workers and we are working on an agreement with the German government for over 250,000 job opportunities by June,” he added. 

However, Ruto’s call for the leaders to read newspapers comes at a time when the government has instructed State agencies to exclude three national newspapers from advertisements, a move some see as a bid to monopolize information.

Kenya Kwanza has singled out The Standard Group PLC (SG), Nation Media Group (NMG) and People Daily from a contract to run My.Gov pull-out, a weekly publication that contains government information, tenders and job opportunities.

Instead, it settled for The Star newspaper, in a contract issued to Convergence Africa Media Limited, a company that is said to have links with the ruling party. By David Njaaga , The Standard