FALSE: Kenya’s tourism cabinet secretary did not say ‘foreigners deserve gifts because they are richer than Kenyans’
A Facebook post claiming that Kenya’s Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary (CS), Najib Balala, has said foreigners deserve gifts because they are richer than Kenyans, is FALSE.
The post also claims Mr Balala said the foreigners “would spend their foreign cash on poor Kenyans”, hence are deserving of the gifts.
The CS made the alleged comments as he was welcoming tourists from Ukraine who arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, on Saturday, April 17, 2021.
News coverage of the arrival of the 189 Ukrainian tourists at Moi International Airport in Mombasa reveals that CS Balala did not make the aforementioned remarks.
Instead, Mr Balala said: “This is exciting news during this difficult time of the pandemic and that is why we are here, a high-powered delegation to welcome this Ukrainian charter. Three weeks ago we received the Romanian charter and you can see the trends, it’s the Eastern bloc that is showing a lot of interest.”
The CS added that though the flight was the first Ukrainian flight operated by Bees Airline, Kenya had received tourists from the European country in the past.
“The Ukrainian charter which has come here for the first time in history is good news although the Ukrainian tourist visitors have been here before. In 2019, we received almost 1900 Ukrainian visitors via other modes of transport,” Mr Balala said.
Mombasa Tourism chief officer, Aisha Abdi, who was also present at the event, said the partnership between the Mombasa county and the Ukrainian government would help revamp the tourism sector in the country.
A peek through CS Balala’s Twitter, the Kenya Tourism Board and the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife pages show no record of the remarks attributed to him in the Facebook post.
Speaking to PesaCheck on the phone, the cabinet secretary denied making the alleged remarks.
“I can’t even imagine doing a statement of discrimination. I have been promoting domestic tourism for the last one year. What is sustaining tourism today is actually domestic tourism. The other foreigners who are coming are most welcome but there are adding to our benefits, Mr Balala said.
“I can never say something like that. If I think of doing so, I should resign from the government. But I can never say something like that and the good thing is that everything is recorded. The media was there, everything is recorded,” he added.
The assistant public relations communications manager at the Kenya Tourism Board, Kimutai Ngeno, told PesaCheck that CS Balala did not make those comments as he was welcoming the Ukraine tourists.
“If you were to check on our messaging specifically during that launch, both on the Magical Kenya and the Ministry of Tourism pages, you will see that it is so contrary to that claim. You can’t expect such information from a government official therefore that claim is very inaccurate,” Mr Ngeno said.
PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming that Kenya’s Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary, Najib Balala, has said foreigners deserve gifts because they are richer than Kenyans and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Naomi Wanjiku and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Rose Lukalo. The article was approved for publication by managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.