MP David Pkosing put to task Trade and Industries CS Nominee Salim Mvurya, to respond to claims that he ran his previous docket, Mining and Blue Economy, from the desk.
According to Pkosing, many Kenyans are unaware that Mvurya had been a CS in the past two years, because he never visited their counties.
“Many Kenyans say you are a desk minister, you only sit and run your ministry from your desk. One of the evidence they are giving is, where you were as minster for mining, many countries are mineral counties, for example West Pokot. If you ask somebody in West Pokot who is Hon. Mvurya, they would think you are a governor of Kwale. Nobody would remember this two years that you have been a minister, in all honesty and truth,” the Pokot South MP said.
“Now you are going to a ministry that is very important which is Trade and Industries and all counties are going bottom up, they are going to be maybe industrial centres, are you going to run your ministry from the desk?” Pkosing questioned Mvurya.
Mvurya however denied claims of being a desk CS, listing several areas that he had been to while in office.
“I want to confirm that I am not a desk minister. I was in West Pokot because of the clinkerization programme, 45 billion. I was in Kithiori and many other places across the country including Kathonzweni in Makueni, Mulukoba in Busia and many others. Maybe I may have not come to your constituency,” he said.
He added that the ministry was also new, requiring several structures in place before he embarks on field work.
“We need to acknowledge that our country is very big and you can not be there at the right time. This ministry was fairly new and we had also to put structures in place before we go out there but I have a lot of field information that I can share with you to confirm that I was not desk. I was the first minister to visit Ndarawe looking for coal tan,” he said.