Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has announced that the government is creating mechanisms to secure investments for Kenyans living in the Diaspora and protecting them from falling prey to fraudsters and rogue companies.
Speaking on Friday while presiding over the closure of the three-day Diaspora Investment Conference 2023, held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, Nairobi, the Deputy President that the Diaspora community is an important plug to the country’s economic development and their remittances have been significant in stabilizing the economy.
“The government is deliberately creating a mechanism through Central Bank of Kenya on how to make it easy for Kenyans living and working in the Diaspora to buy treasury bills, bonds and make all manner of investments. Most of you have lost money to relatives. We want to create a proper mechanism and government will ensure due diligence,” he said.
Gachagua asked the Diaspora community to invest back home, enhance their savings and invite their relatives, friends, and village mates abroad for job opportunities.
His remarks come on the backdrop of incidents of Kenyans working abroad being conned by relatives and associates through purchase of non-existent property particularly land and houses.
At the same time, DP Gachagua commended Principal Secretary, State Department for Diaspora Affairs, Roseline Njogu for her leadership in the docket since it’s establishment by President William Ruto last year and handling of the concerns raised by Kenyans living abroad.
“When President Ruto campaigned, he had engagement with the diaspora and made commitments. He said diaspora community will be part and parcel of the government, and as a result he created a state department and Diaspora Affairs were elevated to Cabinet level. PS Njogu has not disappointed. If there is one appointment that President Ruto got right and spot on, it is that of PS Njogu,” said Gachagua.
He explained, “Kenyans living abroad are a precious jewelry to our administration; they make a valuable contribution to the economy, since their remittances Kenya’s biggest source of foreign exchange”.
In 2022, the remittances surpassed $4 billion and according to the Deputy President, the government’s strategy is to double the number in the next few years.
Asking the Diaspora community to be partners of the government’s Bottom Up Transformation Agenda, the Deputy President also urged Kenyans living and working abroad to look for investors and market Kenyan products.
He said the move will also enlarge space for tax collection, adding that the government has already instructed agencies such as the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC) and Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) to remove bureaucracies involved in remittance of money by Diaspora workers.
“We have asked FRC and ARA not to complicate process of remitting money home but ease the process. Avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. Bureaucracy creates corruption loopholes,” he stated.
Urging the Kenyans aboard to support envoys in wooing investors, the Deputy President said that Kenya is an anchor state, with good democracy and good financial systems that are working.
“I appeal to you to be our ambassadors too, promote our tourism sites. It is good to be patriotic. Also get opportunities for your relatives and connect them to employers abroad,” he said.
He continued, “I have told the Kenya Tea Development Agency and New KPCU that our coffee, tea, macadamia and avocado fruits are best in the world but are not available in the supermarkets because nobody has marketed them. I have asked them to engage diaspora people to market the products as a side hustle”.
He further stated that the government is digitizing consular services to ease the renewal of passports by Kenyans working and living in foreign countries.
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