Following the death of Kenyan ambassador to South Sudan, Mr Chris Karumba Mburu, President Uhuru Kenyatta has come out to offer his condolences.
In a statement from the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit (PSCU), President Kenyatta, has acknowledged that Mr Mburu, who has died of a heart attack at his home located in the capital city of Juba, was a hardworking civil servant and a shining star.
“ Since his appointment as an ambassador to Juba, Ambassador Mburu has worked hard to ensure the free flow of investment and trade between the two countries, that is Kenya and South Sudan,” says the President.
On July 24th 2018, President Kenyatta appointed Ambassador Mburu to serve, plucking him from his position as the Director of National Intelligence Service (NIS) to be the envoy of South Sudamn.
Mr Mburu was appointed at the same time that former spokesperson Manoah Esipisu was appointed the envoy to the United Kingdom (UK).
One of the largest investments between the two countries is the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (Lapsset) Corridor, which in January 2020 came under the auspices of the trading bloc, African Union (AU) to help it mitigate its financial problems that have slowed down its enactment, the East African has reported.
AU is seen as key in supporting foreign directs investments from the continent as well as for the new bloc, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Agenda 2063 of the AU is focused on “ silencing guns” by ensuring that the continent is prosperous and integrated withing the next half century.
The President of South Sudan, the youngest country in Africa, Mr Salva Kirr is expected to be in consultation with his people regarding the peace of the country which has been in conflict since 2014 with its neighbour Sudan and is supposed to report back on the progress by February 22, 2019.
Kenya had been key in brokering the conflict between South Sudan and Sudan in 2011 leading to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
While last weekend agreed to the opposition’s proposal to reduce the number of states in the country, from 32 to 10.
This was the proposition that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-O), which is led by Mr Riek Makachar, had offered.
A stalemate exists between South Sudan and Kenya over the smuggling of counterfeit goods, such as soaps and food products, from the latter country to the former, from Uganda whilst posing as Kenyan, where the late envoy, Mr Chris Mburu had written to the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) cautioning against Kenyan goods from entering South Sudan, as it had affected at least 20 manufacturers.
Mburu had sought for Kebs to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the South Sudan Bureau of Standards to ensure that only authentic products enter South Sudan.
The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) has often decried the loss that counterfeits cause, as it causes the country to loss Kshs 20 billion annually.
Data shows that Kenya exports from the country whose population is close to 11 million citing statistics from the World Bank, were worth Kshs 13 million as of 2018, states Trading Economics, from industries such as manufacturing from beverages and spirits, standing at $ 17. 29 million during the same year.
