Film board chief faults move to revoke diplomatic passport

Kenya Film Classification Board chief Ezekiel Mutua says he will not surrender his diplomatic passport as demanded by the Immigration Department.

In a statement, Mr Mutua argued the Department announced the revocation of the passport through the media without a warning and that he had been given the travel document legally.

“While a diplomatic passport is a privilege given to me by my employer, its withdrawal must follow the laid down procedures of a fair and procedural administrative action,” Dr Mutua, who is in the US on official duties, said in a statement on Sunday.

“Ordinarily, officers who have served in diplomatic positions continue to hold their diplomatic passports until they expire, or they retire from service.”

The apparent conflict between him and the national issuer of travel documents began late last month when he posted an image of his US visa, boasting how he went past red tape in getting approval to enter the US, in spite of his campaigns against homosexuality and atheists.

He landed a trip to attend Google’s Web Rangers Global Summit at its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

But he wrote on Facebook about his haters.

“Because of my moral values, including the banning of content promoting LGBT and atheists culture in Kenya, someone wrote in a local daily that I will never get a visa to the USA. I not only got it but it came on a diplomatic passport and I didn’t even have to go to the Embassy for biometrics or pay the visa applications fee,” he said.

“It was delivered to my office free of charge thanks to our efficient Ministry of Foreign Affairs and highly courteous US embassy officials. America here we come.”

The matter seemed to annoy people and one man asked the Immigration Department to clarify how he got the diplomatic passport in spite of his job falling out of those supposed to be given such.

On Thursday, the Department’s head Gordon Kihalangwa announced Mr Mutua will be asked to return the diplomatic passport as he doesn’t qualify for one.

“He has been asked to surrender it for an ordinary one…since Mr Mutua does not fall in the Third schedule of persons entitled to Diplomatic passports, as per the Kenya Subsidiary Legislation, 2012,” Dr Kihalangwa said via Twitter.

Some have argued the Department was playing to the public gallery as there are legal procedures in law for revoking a person’s passport, largely away from the media and often directed at the individual who is then given time to defend himself.

HOW I GOT PASSPORT

Mr Mutua added that he was granted the document in 2012 after he was transferred from the Ministry of Information to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on diplomatic status, to head the public communications desk.

At the former ministry he was the secretary of information.

However, he said, the move was stopped by Francis Kimemia, who was the Head of Public Service, the following year, arguing that such a crucial transfer must be done through the Public Service Commission.

"The new appointment was however halted in early 2013 by the then head of Public Service Mr Francis Kimemia, who advised that the appointment had to go through the Public Service Commission, and not Ministry-to-Ministry transfer, given my seniority in Government," the statement read.

Consequently, he reverted to his former position as information director which he served until his appointed to the film agency. He still retained his passport.

The 'moral police' has recently come under criticism from a section of Kenyans concerning certain decisions he has made, for example blocking out content-streaming service Netflix.

He said the content provider must first abide to local broadcasting regulations before it is licensed, a position that was objected by Communications Authority Director-General Francis Wangusi.

“We do not want to scare investors. We have not made a decision yet (to penalise Netfix for bringing content without submitting them for classifications), but we have written to them raising our regulatory concerns. We will announce once they write to confirm their availability,” said Mr Mutua in January this year.

On his part, Mr Wangusi argued that: “Netflix is an over- the- top services provider where subscribers get the content through Internet Protocol, more or less like You Tube and as such we are not going to ask them to come for a licence.”

NOT QUALIFIED

Mr Mutua appealed to the Immigration agency to rescind its decision.

He said it was legally acquired and he has not misused it.

"I must therefore protest in the strongest terms possible the purported revocation of the passport without prior notification or warning.

"To learn of such a development from the media while abroad is not only embarrassing but unfair, given that I am out of the country on official duties on behalf of the Government," he said.

The Immigration Department argues that Mr Mutua should have returned the passport once completing his term at the Ministry. But Mutua argues the law allows him to use it till expiry, but not to surrender it.
Most state officers and heads of the disciplined forces and their families are entitled to diplomatic passports.

But according to the new regulations on immigration, the Department argues Mutua’s rank as Chief Executive of the KFCB does not earn him one.

Edited by Philip Momanyi