Kenya missions overstaffed- report

President Kibaki (seated, centre) and Kenyan envoys to different countries after during a past Kenya Ambassadors and High Commissioners conference. Kenyan diplomatic missions abroad are heavily overstaffed with some carrying twice their capacity, according to findings by a parliamentary committee. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Favourite destination missions are London, New York, Washington and Moscow, which are said to fetch attractive salary packages.

  • Committee says some of the missions should be closed as they don’t serve their main purpose of maintaining and promoting economic ties.

Kenyan diplomatic missions abroad are heavily overstaffed with some carrying twice their capacity, according to findings by a parliamentary committee.

According to a report tabled before the House by the parliamentary committee on Defence and Foreign Relations, the total authorised staff capacity in Kenya’s 52 missions abroad should be 355.

But current figures indicate that the current situation in these missions is to the tune of 827 staff.

Favourite destination missions are London, New York, Washington and Moscow, which are said to fetch attractive salary packages.

The London mission has 44 staff against a capacity of 22, New York 28 against a capacity of 9, Moscow 22 against an authorised capacity of 15, and Washington 35 against 23.

Interestingly, some missions have had vacancies for a long time and are yet to be filled. They include the missions in Japan, Rwanda, Israel, Brazil and Libya, among others.

The committee proposes to introduce a Bill that will require Parliament to have a say in the appointment of foreign envoys to head Kenyan missions abroad.

Its chairman Aden Keynan (Wajir West, Kanu) said Wednesday the Bill to be dubbed the Diplomatic Service Bill will help fight cronyism and ethnicity, which he said, represent the face of diplomatic appointments.

“Appointments should be subjected to parliamentary vetting and rules and regulations should be designed to guide this,” Mr Keynan said.

Further, the committee recommends review of the foreign policy establishing missions to ensure that missions are only maintained for the purpose of promoting economic prosperity across the borders.

“We need to rebrand our image and this cannot be done with a tradition of using diplomatic missions to assist our relatives and friends get jobs because it trivialises the essence of having them,” he said.

The committee says the government should close down some of the missions as they don’t serve their main purpose of maintaining and promoting economic ties.

“If we can’t post envoys to these missions let us then just close them and stop these politics,” said the chairman.

He was moving debate on a report filed by the committee following a tour of the missions in London and Turkey. The team also visited Ireland.

The purpose of the tour was evaluating and reviewing the performance of the missions abroad, according to the chairman.

The mission in London was found to have several irregularities among them mismanagement and defiance of recall orders by staff posted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the committee, the image of the High Commission in London is soiled and dented because of the reputation and character of some of the staff.

The committee wants the Efficiency Monitoring Unit to investigate, among others, the circumstances under which some of the officers posted to the mission defied instructions from the Parent Ministry and continued to stay there even after their term had ended and had been recalled.