Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has termed as reckless and malicious an attempt by some MPs to travel to Taiwan during the period when President William Ruto was touring China.
Mudavadi said the plan by the legislators to visit Taiwan was meant to scuttle the government’s efforts to further strengthen its relationship with China, a move that was unpatriotic and a provocative action.
Speaking during question time at the Senate, when he appeared before the Senate Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, the PCS said that it would have been a provocative action.
“We know, there were some people who were pushing to have a delegation from Parliament to go to Taiwan when the President of Kenya is visiting China for a State visit. It could have cost the country a lot,” said Mudavadi.
He said that there are certain things that the country and, particularly, the elected leaders need to be alive to, because they can have serious and devastating implications on the broader welfare of the country.
During the trip to China, President Ruto declared that Kenya supports the One-China policy, a Two-State solution between Israel and Palestine, and dialogue to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
He said during the state visit to China, Kenya won goodies with an impact to change the economic situation in the country, and that some were not happy about the government’s score.
“There were some who did not want the government to achieve anything in the visit, today, once the agreed projects are in place we will have an SGR to the border of Uganda at the Malaba and a dual road to same destination, this will spare economic growth in the regions of Nyanza, Rift Valley and Western,” said Mudavadi.
He urged parliamentarians to be patriotic and to carry themselves and be a good example and influence to the young generation.
On the investment in Kenya’s foreign embassies, Mudavadi said Kenya was engaging in a policy now to look at how to grow its assets abroad, and it’s in the policy document that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working with Parliament.
“We want to use the exchequer, and where we can, also have public-private partnerships. I say so because if you go to Upper Hill today, and I was the guest of honor, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs of Tanzania came and we jointly broke ground where the pension fund, Tanzania pension fund, is putting up a 22-story building,” said the PCS.
He said the house is for the Tanzanian embassy, but will also be available as a revenue-generating asset for the government of Tanzania, so that they can lease the rest of the space they don’t need, and with that, they can manage their matters.
Mudavadi said this had happened in several countries, for example, Uganda, for instance, has got quite a prime building in New York, just next to, not too far from, the UN headquarters, they also have a very big building in Trafalgar Square in London, and Uganda House in Nairobi.
“We have a plan to be able to start making serious investment proposals for the assets that we have so that we can maximize the returns and draw, which can then help in funding our missions, more robustly as we go into the future,” said Mudavadi.
