Musalia Mudavadi queries foreign trade deals

Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi has questioned the benefit to Kenya of the frequent delegations President Uhuru Kenyatta leads abroad.

Mr Mudavadi said individuals in the President’s contingents could be the beneficiaries of some of the agreements signed with other countries.

He also questioned the nature of loans advanced to Kenya.

The ANC leader spoke as President Kenyatta prepares to leave for a security summit in Windhoek, Namibia.

The President took part in another conference in Lome, Togo last week.

“At the risk of being nicknamed ‘the travelling president’, Uhuru has been leading huge foreign delegations where trade agreements are signed. Our Constitution demands that reports of such excursions that commit Kenya be made to Parliament. It never happens,” he said.

TRADE DELEGATIONS

Mr Mudavadi said “since Kenya embarked on an economic diplomacy” when Jubilee assumed power, trade delegations have been “pouring” into foreign capitals, with businesspeople accompanying the President but the beneficiaries of the deals were never made public.

He referred to the “fiasco” on who accompanied the President to Uganda and Nigeria and who benefited from the agreements signed.

He was speaking after being endorsed for the presidency by Nairobi teachers from western Kenya during the launch of their sacco.

“We may see a business oligarchy ‘the Russian way’ with disastrous consequences to our economy,” he added.

Mr Mudavadi was referring to cartels that appropriated state firms in the oil and steel industry following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He said the government should reveal the nature of the spiralling debt resulting from “a penchant by the Jubilee regime to gobble loans indiscriminately”.

“Kenyans must be told which loans are concessionary and which are commercial,” he said.