President Kenyatta seen here holding a mobile phone as he chats Senator Amos Wako/ PSCU FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 30 – The government has started investigations against the United States after allegations that its intelligence agency has been secretly listening to phone conversations of President Uhuru Kenyatta and senior State House officials.
ICT Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said the government will dig into the matter, adding that they were not ready to tolerate the snooping, which has faced other world leaders.
“This is plainly put, very bad manners. This is intrusive, it abuses the privacy of our President and our leaders,” Matiang’i told journalists on Friday. “From the point of view of the government, it’s unacceptable to us. It’s shameful and its bad manners.”
He said after information is gathered, the matter will be dealt with diplomatically.
“Our colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are looking into this matter and we have shared the information that we needed to share. I would like to insist that matters and issues that involve diplomacy should however be handled with a lot of care,” Matiang’i said.
He also made claims that there was a plot to listen in to phone conversations of leaders in the wider East African region.
“I know this is in the public domain because there are things which happened to the German Chancellor, and quite frankly it is intrusive to the privacy of His Excellency the President and leaders at the national level,” he said.
In October last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised concerns that the US intelligence may have spying on her mobile phone conversations for years.
Matiang’i however said there was no cause for alarm adding that the matter will be handled appropriately.
“We are taking measures together with the relevant agencies that are supposed to do this to ensure that we secure our communications. These efforts have been going on for a while,” the CS assured.
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