Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has defended his actions of recording people without their consent saying it was President Uhuru Kenyatta who introduced him to it.
Appearing on KTN News on Sunday, April 24, Sonko who is eying the Mombasa gubernatorial seat, in this year’s polls said Uhuru gave him his first recording device immediately he was elected the second governor of Nairobi in 2017.
“I am not a recording artist. That issue of recording people started during my first term in office,
“(President) Uhuru introduced me to an engineer at State House and directed me to investigate the loopholes in revenue collection. It is he who gave me my first recording device,” Sonko said.
Famed for his exposes on social media, Sonko said his culture of recording people secretly was meant to help curb rampant corruption at the City Hall adding that it has helped in exposing graft in different government agencies.
“The first achievement of President Uhuru and I was to digitize cash collection. I meant well. We started collecting over KSh 150,000,000 per day,” Sonko said.
Two years ago, Mike Sonko released an audio recording of a phone call between Kariobangi MCA Julius Maina Njoka and his Kitisuru counterpart Alvin Olando Palapala.
The release came after Palapala accused Governor Sonko of using public resources to cover a trip to the US by former First Lady Primrose Mbuvi and her daughter Saumu Mbuvi.
In the recording, Palapala was heard describing in detail the ways through which he and other MCAs used to misappropriate county funds during Evans Kidero’s regime.
The MCA went on to lament that Governor Sonko had sealed all the avenues the MCAs used to exploit to embezzle public funds during former Governor Kidero’s administration.
