Nairobi — Statehouse Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed has clarified that the Kenyan government had legally cleared only 51 people to attend the COP28 UN climate talks in the United Arabs Emirates (UAE).
Speaking on Sunday in an interview with Citizen TV Mohamed stated that although the number of Kenyans attending the conference was large, only 51 government representatives had registered to attend.
Hussein said the other people from Kenya, who attended the conference were sponsored by the corporate sector and a variety of figures from county administrations.
"The Kenyan delegation is huge in terms of the number of Kenyans coming. In terms of the people from the national government coming, we had 51 people. We have a lot more Kenyans coming representing youth groups, women, communities, from the NGO world. Are you going to say that all those people are representatives of government? No. They have their own roles to undertake at COP," he said.
Hussein added, although the President had little control on other organizations outside of his office that were funding attendance, he was dedicated to living up to his words of cutting the government travel costs as he promised.
"We have so many other Kenyans from the private sector, non-state actors, county government, parliament, is that part of the Presidency? No," he added.
This comes as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which released the list, ranked Kenya 12th out of all participants, with the most delegates.
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According to the report, Kenya has 763 delegates attending out of the 97,000 delegates from 195 countries. 368 of these are party delegates, while 397 are delegates from overflow organizations.
Among those in attendance, led by President William Ruto, are First Lady Rachel Ruto, Second Lady Dorcas Rigathi, Prime CS Musalia Mudavadi, Environment and Forestry CS Soipan Tuya and Attorney General Justin Muturi.
Other CSs include Rebecca Miano (Trade), Njuguna Ndung'u (Treasury), Aisha Jumwa (Public Service), Alice Wahome (Water), Senate Speaker Amason Kingi, State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohammed and COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli.
On 3rd October, the Chief of Staff in the office of the President Felix Koskei has announced the suspension of unnecessary foreign trips by government officers.
Koskei said the move is aimed at scaling down expenditure, prioritizing spending and shifting focus on the critical operations and activities that are essential to service delivery to the citizen.
The Head of Public Service said delegations involving both Cabinet and Principal Secretaries shall be restricted to the three person limit.
The advisory also bars Cabinet and Principal Secretaries in the same ministries to be away on foreign travel at the same time, unless the foreign engagement expressly demands the same.
