Ezekiel Mutua pleads with Immigration Department not to revoke his diplomatic passport
Kenya Film Classification Board CEO Ezekiel Mutua is pleading with the Immigration Department not to withdrawal his diplomatic passport.
This comes after the Immigration Department last week announced that Mr Mutua, who is currently in the US, to surrender his Diplomatic passport after he returns and to be issued with an ordinary one.
In a statement that he issued on Sunday, Mutua said that he was not a criminal and he had no committed any crime and that as a high ranking government officer he should be allowed to carry one.
“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,” Mutua said.
Kenyans on social media had expressed outrage after the Films Board boss posted a photo of the passport on his Facebook account, bragging about how he obtained it.
WITHDRAWAL
Days later the immigration department said that Mr Mutua did qualify for a diplomatic passport and should surrender it to the state.
But in response, Mr Mutua is urging that there are no grounds for the withdrawal of his diplomatic passport.
“The passport is a privilege granted to me by the government in 2012 after I was transferred from the Ministry of Information to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At no point have I abused or used the said Diplomatic passport for personal gain,” he said.
He added that the withdrawal of his passport must follow the laid down procedures.
Mr Mutua said that he learned that his passport was revoked through the media while abroad and it was not embarrassing but unfair given that he is out of the country on official duties.