Gov't suspends all non-essential travel, sets limits for delegations on foreign trips

In a circular issued on Monday by Head of Public Service Felix Koskei, the government also announced restriction of delegations accompanying the President, Deputy President, the First Lady and Prime Cabinet Secretaries for foreign trips.

According to the notice, the suspended non-essential travels include benchmarking, study visits, trainings and related capacity-building initiatives as well as research, academic meetings and symposia.

Others include conferences and meetings of general participation, side events such as showcase events and exhibitions as well as caucus and association meetings and events.

“In this respect, foreign travel will only be facilitated for engagements in which the Government of Kenya’s participation is; part of fulfilment of state obligations, and pursuant to the conduct of critical state party engagements; and for the purpose of fulfilling a statutory leadership or membership role, in which critical decisions impacting on the country’s position are under consideration,” reads the notice.

Koskei indicated that delegations headed by Cabinet Secretaries shall not exceed three persons including the Cabinet Secretary as Head of Delegation while delegations headed by Principal Secretaries, shall not exceed two persons.

“Where the Cabinet Secretary is to be accompanied, at least one (1) of the delegates shall be a technical officer specialised in the subject matter of the foreign engagement, with no security or personal assistants/logistics officers other than as exempted,” reads the notice.

Delegations involving both Cabinet and Principal Secretaries shall be restricted to the three (3) person limit. 

“It is reiterated that Cabinet and Principal Secretaries in the same ministries shall not be away on foreign travel at the same time, unless the foreign engagement expressly demands the same,” added Koskei.

Delegations headed by County Governors shall not exceed three persons including the Governor as Head of Delegation.

Delegations accompanying the President, the First Lady, the Deputy President, and the Prime Cabinet Secretary shall strictly be approved for officials playing a direct role in the scheduled activities/programme of the principals. 

In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs has been directed to rationalise the number of personnel accompanying each of the principals, and reduce the same by fifty per cent (50%).

The notice has also capped the number of days for official travel to a maximum of seven days which includes the travel days.

The austerity measures, according to Koskei, has been necessitated by the need to "scale down and prioritise spending, focusing on the critical operations and activities that are essential to service delivery to the citizen."