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  • 2021-08-11 (xsd:date)
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  • Photo of Kenya’s president digitally altered to suggest he was seeking loans in UK (en)
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  • A picture of Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta standing next to a woman holding a notebook marked loans has been shared hundreds of times on social media with claims that he was on a mission to the UK to borrow money. However, this image, which shows the president with a Sky News journalist, has been digitally altered: the word loans did not exist in the original photo. The image was published here on Facebook on August 2, 2021, with the caption: UhuRu came back from United Kingdom after signing lots of loans, now for him to steal all he has to divert attention to blocking his deputy... (sic). The post’s mention of his deputy refers to Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto, who local media reported was recently blocked from travelling to Uganda. Screenshot of the post, taken on August 10, 2021 The image shows president Kenyatta standing next to a woman who is not named in the post. She is holding a yellow notebook with the word loans written in capital letters. The image was also posted here on Facebook a few days earlier, with the caption simply reading, What’s going on here please?. Additionally, the image was posted here on Twitter by an account with more than 96,000 followers. While the caption consists of a series of laughing emojis, replies to the tweet suggest that many commenters believed the image was authentic. Screenshot of one of the Twitter replies, taken on August 10, 2021 On July 28 to 30, 2021, President Kenyatta went on a three-day visit to the UK to co-host the Global Education Summit with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A statement released by the Office of the President on July 26, 2021, showed that the Kenyan president’s visit to the UK was aimed at strengthening the two countries’ strategic partnership, described as a broad framework for cooperation which covers a wide array of bilateral subjects between the two nations including security cooperation, trade and investment. This image, however, has been digitally altered by adding the word loans on the notebook cover to create the perception that Kenyatta went to the UK on a borrowing mission. Original notebook cover has no text By conducting a reverse image search , AFP Fact Check found that the original picture shows President Kenyatta with Sky News journalist Kimberley Leonard, who interviewed him during his trip to the UK. It was shared on Twitter by Kenya’s ambassador to the UK Manoah Esipisu on July 30, 2021. Screenshot of the tweet, taken on August 11, 2021 The word loans did not exist in the original image. The cover of the journalist’s notebook was blank. The image is circulating online just a few months after a Twitter campaign urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to withdraw a loan offer to president Kenyatta’s administration, arguing that previous loans to the country had not been spent in a prudent manner. In April 2021, the IMF board approved a new Sh255 billion loan ($2.34 billion) to Kenya to help the country continue to fight the Covid-19 pandemic as well as address its debt vulnerabilities. According to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), Kenya’s public debt amounted to Sh7.3 trillion (approximately $66.7 billion) as of January 2021. (en)
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