President Uhuru’s regime has hired Squire Patton Boggs to lobby US government not to cut aid due to accusations that the jubilee regime is abetting, even facilitating, human trafficking and sexual prostitution. Kenyan taxpayers will fork sh 13 million for the three months the law firm will be lobbying for Kenya in US capital Washington DC.
The revelations came after the firm disclosed its clients – a mandatory requirement under US law. President Uhuru’s 2013 elections PR firm BTP Advisers as well as ex-British Premier Tony Blair’s company AGI (Africa Governance Initiative) also retained by Uhuru regime.
A letter signed by Squire Patton Boggs partner David Dunn and addressed to Foreign Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed, notes that Kenya is facing “a cut-off of all non-humanitarian and other forms of assistance from the US government.”
The threat arises from the State Department’s designation of Kenya as a “Tier 2” country in annual reports assessing governments’ efforts to prevent human trafficking.
Countries assigned to that group are deemed to be failing to comply fully with minimal standards for eliminating trafficking and include North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria, Zimbabwe and Eritrea.
According to the letter dated March 24, Kenya needs a waiver from the Secretary of State by the time the 2015 trafficking in persons report is issued next month to avoid relegation to Tier 3.
The lobbying firm says it will undertake “an intense three-month effort” to document and inform US officials of Kenya’s “extensive efforts” to address trafficking in persons.
The State Department’s most recent Trafficking in Persons report found that children are “exploited in prostitution throughout Kenya, including in the Coastal sex-tourism industry.”
The report describes Kenya as “a source, transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking. Kenyan women are subjected to forced prostitution in Thailand by Ugandan and Nigerian traffickers†.
The regime also hired the Podesta Group to advance a ‘general agenda’. The two firms will cost the country Ksh 48 million yearly for the next three years ahead of the 2017 elections. It is estimated that these new listings now bring the number of PR organizations working directly for the government of Kenya at to at least twenty five firms.
This however pales in comparison to Nigeria under ex-President Goodluck Jonathan who is said to have hired over 50 PR firms to work in various sectors of the Nigerian economy to whitewash the government’s incompetence.
Jonathan was recently defeated in a general election by opposition leader Gen. Mahamadu Buhari.
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