The Kenyan government is planning to buy luxury cars and houses to be used by heads of state and other high-profile dignitaries visiting the country.
“The ministry seeks to acquire suitable guesthouses for high-level dignitaries visiting the country. This will cut costs of hotel accommodation and ensure there is always availability of accommodation and reduce dependency on hotels,” Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo said in a statement adding that this move will boost security and confidentiality.
The ministry says the protocol vehicles will be stationed on the airside of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) for use in the movement of very-very important persons (VVIPS) and very important persons (VIPs) from flights to lounges and protocol officers during the meet-and-greet duty. It has however not disclosed the number of vehicles or houses it intends to purchase.
This will add to the growing burden of running the Foreign Affairs ministry, which is spending billions of shillings to host Kenyan diplomats in foreign capitals.
‘’The ministry has a large fleet of old vehicles hence increased maintenance costs. In addition, unlike in other international airports, JKIA does not have protocol cars stationed within the tarmac area/airside to facilitate VVIPs and VIPs on arrival and departure (boarding and disembarking),” Ms. Omamo said.
This comes after the Foreign Affairs ministry recently announced that it would cease renting property and instead shift to buying, in order to cut its high expenditure on the rental costs which are reportedly almost 3 billion shillings a year.
The Treasury in the year to June 2021 allocated the Foreign Affairs ministry a total of 17.33 billion shillings out of which 16.2 billion shillings went to recurrent expenditure, leaving 1.13 billion shillings for development.
The government has been losing billions of money in paying rent for government officials. A good example is Kenya’s ambassador to New York official residence which has been vacant for 10 years even as taxpayers fork out millions annually to pay for the officer’s rent. The residential building, known as Kenya House, sits on approximately two acres of land in the American city.
The ambassador lives on a leased property for which taxpayers are paying an annual rent of 23 million shillings. The mission in New York incurs annual maintenance expenses of 120,000 shillings and an annual utility cost of 868,000 shillings on the unoccupied property.