That Kenya does not own property in all the countries where it has a diplomatic presence means the country must spend some money in renting houses to accommodate its citizens in foreign service.
But a different signal is sent when Nairobi’s representatives are made to pay rent in cities where Kenya already owns buildings. Such an arrangement especially smacks of doublespeak on the part of a government that has been vocal about austerity measures.
The reality, however, is that this is exactly what is happening. The taxpayer is being forced to shoulder the extra burden of paying rent -- in pricey cities such as London -- because bureaucrats have failed to push for one-off budgetary allocations to bring the derelict properties to shape.
The latest audit of foreign missions has particularly singled out the missions in Washington DC, New York and London — which are arguably the most prestigious – as cities in which buildings belonging to the Kenyan government have been left to waste away.
The Kenyan Embassy building in Washington DC was, for instance, constructed in the 1930s and is said to require complete re-roofing to become hospitable again. Nairobi also needs to renovate its Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and build more houses for staff to save taxpayers the burden of high rent charges that is currently accruing.
Unfortunately, short-term thinking has become predominant in the Foreign Affairs ministry. The reasoning appears to be that as long as diplomats have roofs over their heads, nothing else, including the huge cost to the taxpayer - matters.
Yet as a result of this indiscretion – the failure to make available houses hospitable - leasing costs have leapt to Sh2.3 billion in the year to June 2017, the audit found. And just to make sense of the figure, Sh2.3 billion a year is enough to stock a number of public hospitals with drugs, hire a few hundred more teachers, train dozens of specialist doctors or inject direct cash transfers to thousands of elderly citizens for a year.
As the national audit office has suggested, time is ripe for the Foreign Affairs ministry to come up with a clear policy on circumstances under which diplomatic missions should be allowed to construct, purchase or rent property abroad.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
