Bernard Namunane
30 July 2005
Nairobi — Transport minister Chris Murungaru yesterday blamed his travel ban to Britain on trade wars plus a vendetta by the UK's former High Commissioner, Sir Edward Clay.
He said bad blood developed between them when he was National Security minister in the Office of the President.
But Sir Edward refused to respond to Dr Murungaru's accusations.
Reached on the telephone at his home in the UK, he said: "I am retired and immaterial to the ongoing arguments. It is better if any queries were directed to the High Commission in Nairobi."
The commission's Press attaché, Mr Mark Norton, said: "I cannot comment on individual visa cases but I can, however, say that I have never known Sir Edward Clay to influence a visa case, maliciously, or otherwise."
Dr Murungaru said the travel ban had caused distress in his personal, professional, political and business life.
"I say this not in jest but in all sincerity and seriousness, for this ban is the most malicious, callous and unwarranted thing that has ever happened to me," the minister said.
Wearing a dark blue striped suit, cream shirt and a matching tie at a Press conference he called in his office at Transcom House, Nairobi, Dr Murungaru vowed to turn to the courts to have the ban rescinded.
And he challenged the British government to tell the world the reasons for revoking his visa, so he can have a chance to clear his name.
"I intend to take the most vigorous legal action to end this hounding by innuendo, gossip and malice. Let London table the case against me now in the public domain in both London and Nairobi and end this campaign of non-specific attrition," he said.
Dr Murungaru was speaking after meeting President Kibaki for the second day running.
He saw the President yesterday at State House, Nairobi. The first meeting was in State House, Nakuru, a day after the British told airlines he was banned from either entering or passing through Britain.
The alert, sent to major airlines, was signed by a Mr Clive Wools, and stated, in part: "Please note that the current United Kingdom visa in the passport of the above named gentleman has been revoked. He is therefore not, repeat not, acceptable for travel to or through the United Kingdom and should not be carried there."
It advised the airlines to refer the Kieni MP to the High Commission in Nairobi if he disputed that his visa had been revoked.
Former British high commissioner Edward Clay addresses the Press in this file picture. His sour relations with the Kibaki administration started early this year, when he made scathing attacks on the Government over what he termed new corruption.
Describing the timing of the ban as well choreographed, Dr Murungaru said it all started with a letter dated Monday, July 25, this year which was sent from London to his Nairobi office and received the following day.
Before he had "digested the contents", said the minister, the media announced the ban on Wednesday after receiving copies of the letters sent by the British to the airlines.
"The timing of the banning orders on me were well choreographed," he said.
And he went on: "I can only speculate that the hand of immediate former British High Commissioner Sir Edward Clay is deep in this needlessly melodramatic display of undiplomatic intimidation, libel and defamation."
During Sir Edward's tenure, the British and in particular Sir Edward, were unhappy at the loss of business by British companies whose contracts slipped away after many years of monopoly.
Dr Murungaru said the change of fortune for British firms was not due to corruption, as Sir Edward believed, but because of stiff competition from other companies in Europe and in the far East.
He continued: "It is my considered opinion that hell hath no fury like a monopolistic British closed-procurement process that is finally exposed to real competitive tendering."
"For some reason, Clay came to identify me with the loss by British firms of a number of key procurement contracts under my tenure at the Office of the President," he said.
Dr Murungaru accused the former envoy of having taken partisan positions in the country's coalition politics and of having interfered with the Constitution making at the Bomas of Kenya.
He said Sir Edward sided with forces that were against the way the Government was steering the Constitution review and his concern must have reached a crescendo when Parliament last week passed the revised Bomas Draft and presented it to Attorney General Amos Wako.
"I can only speculate that mischief was played out a week after I participated in the passage of the PSC (Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution) report of which I had actively participated both in the consensus building process and as a member of the PSC," he said.
He took exception to the manner in which the High Commission handled the ban - first informing the airlines and then writing to him after the ban was made public.
Describing the banning orders as vague and vicious, Dr Murungaru said they were based on suspicions, allegations and animosities by British and Kenyan informers.
"They are loaded with pretentious hints at dark deeds but which specify nothing," he said.
Referring to Kenya as a sovereign state, Dr Murungaru said that Britain would not exercise any power over the country including its ministers.
"Kenya is a sovereign nation with well developed and recently reformed Judiciary," he said.
Dr Murungaru accused Britain of attempting to hold the country to ransom when its interests were in jeopardy and said the Government would resist such moves.
"What London is trying to do in the case of Nairobi now is not a two-way affair; it is a unilaterally one-way, hugely unfair, overbearing and supercilious. It must not stand. It will not stand," he said.
The Government has termed the action against the minister as an unfriendly act and demanded an explanation from the High Commissioner.
Sources said staff at the commission were told the decision was made by the Home Office in London and that they had to implement it.
It was said Dr Murungaru was to travel to the UK yesterday for a medical check up and that he had a visa for six months.
Mathira MP Nderitu Gachagua and the Centre for Law and Research International (Clarion) yesterday asked the High Commission to make public the reasons for revoking the minister's visa.
It would be wrong, said Mr Gachagua and Clarion's Morris Odhiambo, for Britain to slap a travel ban on the minister without justifying their action.
"The United Kingdom must make public the reasons for their ban on Dr Murungaru for all of us to know they are genuine. The minister's integrity will remain in question in they keep quiet," he said.
Mr Odhiambo, Clarion's deputy executive director, said the silence by the commission had opened avenues of negative speculation.
"We call upon the British Government to furnish us and the people of Kenya reasons why they banned the minister from travelling," he said.
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