Mudavadi overturns Mutua's order on direct contact with diplomatic missions

Prime CS and Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has overturned a decision by predecessor Alfred Mutua allowing foreign missions in Kenya to communicate directly with various ministries, state departments and agencies. 

Mudavadi made the communication on Monday before the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations, where he said that going forward, all correspondence with the government will be done through the Office of the Chief of Protocol, State Department of Foreign Affairs. 

"In a recent development, the government has revised its decision regarding direct contact between diplomatic and consular missions, UN agencies, and international organisations with government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs),” Mudavadi said. 

The communication was also made to the Diplomatic Corps during Mudavadi's inaugural meeting with the foreign envoys in Nairobi since he took over the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs role from CS Mutua, now heading the Tourism and Wildlife docket. 

While lauding the diplomats for strengthening Kenya's bilateral relations with their sending countries and assuring them of his readiness to build on the gains made, Mudavadi informed the directive to decentralize communication between diplomatic missions and government agencies had been vacated. 

Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing'oei said the position set out under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations subsists. 

Article 41 (2) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations explicitly provides that: “All official business with the receiving State entrusted to the mission by the sending state shall be conducted with or through the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the receiving State or such other ministry as may be agreed.” 

The Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs has the primary responsibility to advise on, facilitate the execution of and steer Kenya’s foreign policy on behalf of the President. 

In a note verbale dated March 1, 2023, the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs informed all diplomatic missions that they could communicate directly with any government agency. 

The note verbale also directed that requests for meetings involving more than one ministry would be made through the Office of the Deputy President. 

While the move was welcomed by foreign envoys as one that would reduce bureaucracy in diplomatic engagements, diplomatic experts termed the move a blunder that would expose Kenya to possible manipulation by global powers. 

Senior officials at the ministry confidentially at the time warned the move would result in a protocol nightmare. 

However, Mutua at the time defended the move, saying he had been bothered by many pending MoUs and lost opportunities due to "traditional and mostly elitist-based bureaucracy", and was thus giving the directive for faster interactions. 

“In the interest of coordination, the forgoing is subject to requirement by the missions to avail a report to the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs on the held deliberation and decision undertaken within three days of the meeting,” the note verbale stated on the arrangement. 

Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, however, retains the coordination of development partner's programmes function in President William Ruto's Executive Order 2 of 2023 on November 1. 

The Executive order retained the International Development Partnerships Coordination Unit in his office, whose function is coordination, planning and supervision of the implementation of development partners’ programs and functions.