The director of Diaspora Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ambassador Zachary Dominic Muburi-Muita, has been moved to the Middle East division at the ministry headquarters in Nairobi.
The directorate will now be headed by Washington Edwin Anyango Oloo, a former head of mission in Brussels, Belgium.
Speaking during the handing-over ceremony in Nairobi on Monday, Mr Muburi-Muita said he would now concentrate on issues affecting the Kenyan diaspora and Kenyan missions in the Middle East region.
“I learnt of the transfer when I returned from an official trip to Pretoria, South Africa, over the weekend,” he told the Nation in a statement.
The shuffle comes as the Foreign Affairs ministry prepares for a diaspora stakeholders’ conference, slated for December 19 and 20 this year in Nairobi.
The Nation could not immediately establish what may have led to the unexpected transfer, but a source at the ministry headquarters intimated that there may have been internal wrangling, with some senior officials complaining about the way issues were handled at the ministry headquarters.
“We just hope that the diaspora conference will be a success as there is so much at stake,” said the source, who cannot be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media.
MIDDLE EAST EMPLOYERS
But Mr Muburi-Muita’s new appointment could be viewed by some as the government’s effort to address issues affecting Kenyans in the Middle East.
Recently, cases of Kenyans being duped by agents and subsequent mistreatment by employers in the Middle East have been on the rise.
Mr Muburi-Muita was recently quoted as saying that about 10,000 Kenyans in the Middle East report mistreatment and poor working conditions annually.
“We are very concerned that there appears to be a loophole in the regulations and the law. The regulations and the law have not modernised fast enough to catch up with changing times. The recruiting agents were in a Wild West scenario,” he said.
However, Mr Muburi-Muita’s transfer is likely to raise eyebrows, coming barely one year since he was appointed the Diaspora Affairs director.
As the Jubilee administration marked its first year in office last April, President Kenyatta’s administration came under fierce criticism by Kenyans in the diaspora for “not taking the 48th county seriously”.
Some said their agenda was never given much thought both in the TNA and URP manifestos before the forging of the alliance between the two parties.
“This government does not seem ready for any meaningful engagement with the diaspora,” said Mr Peter Makanga, the Chairman of the Kenyan American Advocacy Group (KAAG).
“The chickens are now coming home to roost. It is a clear indication that from the word go, we were just a by-the-way in the grand scheme of things,” said Jeremy Anguka in an interview withNation.co.ke in Washington, DC.
Source-nation.co.ke
