Munya told off over Somaliland ‘pact’

State House on Sunday berated Meru Governor Peter Munya for engaging in diplomacy with Somaliland and causing a diplomatic incident with Somalia.

State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu warned governors that they do not run sovereign states, and cautioned them against engaging sovereign states without the government’s express permission.

Mr Munya was described as lacking decorum and protocol in his bid to secure a botched miraa deal with Somaliland.

The Somali government had said they imposed a one-week ban on miraa imports from Kenya after Governor Munya “promised” to push for international recognition of Somaliland - a breakaway region of Somalia that the government still considers part of its territory.

Mr Esipisu described Mr Munya’s understanding of foreign relations as “at best ill informed”.

“Governor Munya travelled to Somaliland and purported to reach an agreement with the authorities there about miraa exports to the region...the Government of Somalia took the grim view that Kenya recognised Somaliland as an independent state, and so the decision to ban the imports from Kenya,” read the State House statement.

Mr Manoah said President Uhuru Kenyatta had to assure his Somali counterpart Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud that Kenya did not recognise breakaway states, to get the ban lifted.

The ban was lifted last Wednesday. But Munya on Sunday laughed off the statement as pure propaganda and misinformation.

“I never travelled to Somaliland as a representative of the national government. I have two Masters in international law and know very well the responsibilities of the national government,” Mr Munya told the Nation from Sweden, where he is on an official trip.

“These people are politicising this issue. Isn’t it so evident and straightforward that they are doing all this because their misinformation did not work?” He posed.

Read: Lobby seeks govt help over miraa ban by Somalia

MUNYA'S TROUBLES
Mr Munya said he travelled with the Somaliland representative in Kenya.

He said the region had a liaison office in Kenya that had helped organise his trip “in search of markets for miraa”.

“How could I promise them independence? I do not have the resources, neither do I have such kind of power,” said Mr Munya.

The governor has faced opposition after he fell out with Meru Senator Kiraitu Murungi, who wants to unseat him in the next polls.

He has also refused to join the Jubilee Party, developments on which he blamed his woes.

State House also denied claims that the President’s visit was all part of a choreographed event that involved banning the trade, framing Mr Munya and then having President Kenyatta ask for the ban to be lifted.

Mr Esipisu said the trip had long been planned for a summit of IGAD in Mogadishu.

Since the visit came at a time of the controversy, he said, the two heads of states naturally talked about it on the sidelines of the summit.

Additional reporting by Bruhan Makong