Inside Moses Kuria's 19 foreign trips in three months
Investment, Trade and Industry Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria speaks during an African Union Meeting in Nairobi.
When Trade Cabinet secretary Moses Kuria is not rabble-rousing in matters outside his scope, he is sure to be globetrotting.
Mr Kuria has emerged as the most travelled minister in the administration of President William Ruto, having been out of Kenya on at least 19 occasions in the first 100 days since he took office.
In February alone, Mr Kuria has travelled to 10 different countries around the world, meeting 11 sitting presidents and former Tanzanian Head of State, Jakaya Kikwete.
The Trade Cabinet secretary also appears to be one of President Ruto's preferred ministers, if not his outright favourite, having accompanied him on all his trips abroad.
'In all these tours, I was not sending myself. I was appointed a special envoy by President William Ruto to talk to our neighbours and try to re-establish our leadership in the region and to push through agreements of strategic value to Kenya,'' he says.
Some of these strategic agreements, he argues, have stalled for years and that they could only be unlocked through presidential decisions.
Mr Kuria has travelled with Ruto to South Korea, to New York for the US-Africa Summit and recently to Addis Ababa for the African Union Summit.
A tally by the Business Daily shows that the CS has been out of the country more times than his Foreign Affairs counterpart Alfred Mutua.
Dr Mutua has been out on 15 occasions, visiting among other countries, the US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania and Algeria.
Curiously, Dr Mutua has largely been hosting ambassadors and high commissioners in his office rather than travelling to their countries.
Some of the diplomats he has met so far include Meghan Whitman (US), Selma Haddadi (Algeria) Yuan Manuel (Cuba) and Tareque Muhammad (Bangladesh).
In most jurisdictions globally, and traditionally in Kenya, diplomacy is domiciled in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the minister being their country's principal diplomat charged with representing their country's interests in the international arena.
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