Last week, the 14th Conference of Kenyan Ambassadors and High Commissioners took place in Nairobi with President Kibaki warning Kenyan Ambassador and other diplomats that they should take their jobs seriously and market the country aggressively or quit.
“Our Embassies and High Commissions should change the way they work. Don’t spend many years abroad being useless. If you feel you have nothing to do for this country then go and work elsewhere.”, Kibaki told his representatives from 48 Missions across the world.
Back “home in Stockholm”, it was difficult to digest Kibaki’s lecture without thinking about our own Ambassador Purity Muhindi who has had nothing spectacular to show off since she took over from former Ambassador Mukiri Kinyanjui. In fact, the reign of Ambassador Purity has been dogged by a string of controversies which have made the Embassy less interesting to many Kenyans in Scandinavia.
Our Embassy in Stockholm has a very unique approach to the very issues Kibaki was raising. For the Embassy, “marketing Kenya abroad” means grabbing and selling land belonging to the Embassy even if the deal is illegal. No one blames Ambassador Purity for having sold any land but her tomb-like silence when the land scandal broke out makes her an accomplice. The land was only returned after ODM-KS waged a huge public campaign that included the involvement of the Swedish authorities.
There is a common whisper in Stockholm that “never introduce any potential investor to the Embassy” because the first thing that will happen is that you will be thrown out as top Embassy staff take over the deal. One example will suffice.
A hard working Mkenya managed to convince a Swedish hospital that was upgrading its equipment to donate the old equipment to a local dispensary in Kenya instead of throwing them away. The only condition he was given was to organize for transport and to arrange with the government on how the goods could be delivered. Since the equipment was a donation, the Mkenya did not expect the government to tax the cargo especially if the Mkenya could raise funds to transport them.
The deal entered into problems because the guy soon discovered that he had been cut out. A representative of an Embassy official took direct contact with the hospital to negotiate the deal and when the Mkenya discovered what was going on, he cut off strings connected to the deal and it collapsed. This is just a single case.
Kibaki told his Reps to “tap young Kenyan talent currently based in Diaspora” as a way of helping the government realize its “five year roadmap for economic and social development” whose budget has been placed at Sh 500 billion.
It is difficult to understand how the above objective will be met by an Embassy which fires its own citizens from work before hiring Swedish nationals. There is a long standing question at the Embassy that has never been answered. How will the Embassy tap young Kenyan talents in Diaspora when white Swedish nationals have taken up top jobs which could be done by Wakenya in Stockholm? When you visit the Swedish Embassy in Kenya, Kenyans working there are mainly subordinate staff with sensitive jobs being manned by white skinned, blond haired, blue eyed Swedes so why isn’t the situation the same at the Embassy?
In other words, why should a Swede be in charge of translating sensitive government documents from Swedish to English when there are Kenyans capable of doing the job with the advantage of patriotism?
“TOP SECRET” VISITS OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
The most notorious charge against our Ambassador is that she has never made any effort to meet Wakenya. The next six million Dollar question is: If the Ambassador has been unable to reach out to her own people to even update them about the latest government position on investments, how will she reach foreign investors in Sweden when she cannot work with Wakenya who can speak Swedish?
Kibaki said: “I expect all missions to project a positive image and perception of Kenya by giving correct information on the country and its achievements”.
Surely, when is the last time Ambassador Purity Muhindi sent out an information update about Kenya? Instead of doing so, she sent a questionnaire to Wakenya looking for their personal details including their birthdays. Almost every Mkenya never sent back the form because they did not see why sending such information was a matter of urgency.
When government officials come to Sweden for some function, it is always a perfect opportunity for the Embassy to utilize such occasions to expose such officials to Wakenya or the wider Swedish community for updates about what is actually happening on the ground.
Instead, the Embassy has been keeping such visits “top secret” because it does not want Wakenya to “Embarrass” these officials with difficult questions. When a group of Kenyan professionals visited Sweden last year to attend a Conference, they had to meet Wakenya at a private apartment in Älvsjö after a Kenyan bumped into them in town. He overheard them speaking Swahili and asked them where they came from. They told Wakenya that the Embassy did not even care that they were in the country.
Everybody who was following the news at KSB knows about Juliet Kavinga who was murdered by a Swede before the Swede was discharged. When the appeal case came up, the Embassy went missing in Court. If the scene was playing itself in Kenya and Juliet was a Swede, the situation could have been different and the matter could have been in the Swedish media constantly.
Some Swedes who were arrested by the Ethiopian government have been in the news because of diplomatic pressure. If the Embassy cannot even look into the welfare of its own citizens here in Stockholm, what can Wakenya expect regardless of what Kibaki is saying at State House?
Ambassador Purity Muhindi should change her tactics if she doesn’t want to pack and go home before the end of her tour of duty. At least, she has done one positive thing – met Officials of the Kenya Social Forum (Kesofo) and opened the Embassy for what is possible. However, she needs to go further. The Embassy needs to make a follow-up of the Kesofo meeting because the Embassy needs the organization. President Kibaki has already made his position very clear. But will Ambassador Muhindi heed Kibaki’s advise?
Okoth Osewe
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