Speaker Muturi to lead Kenyan MPs to Middle East

Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]

The Speaker of the National Assembly will this week lead a delegation to Saudi Arabia.

The MPS will visit the Consultative Assembly of the kingdom, referred to as Majlis Ash-Shura.

The assembly is the formal advisory body of the kingdom.

Yesterday, National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale said Minority Leader John Mbadi and 11 other MPs from various committees would accompany Speaker Justin Muturi.

"We are going there on an official State invitation. It is the Speaker of Saudi Arabia that invited our speaker together with us this week," explained Mr Duale.

He said that over the years, Kenya has benefited from more than Sh24 billion from the Arab Development Fund.

Duale said among the projects funded were the construction of a medical college in Chwele, Bungoma County, and the Nuno-Modogashe road project in Garissa County.

Others are the Sultan Hamud Hospital in Makueni County and the construction of a burns and paediatric centre at Kenyatta National Hospital.

The legislators will identify, study, and cooperate with their Saudi counterparts in the transfer of technologies used in the Middle East monarchy that has made the cost of housing affordable.

Kenyan workers

Mr Mbadi said the legislators would discuss the safety of Kenyan workers who have in the past suffered mistreatment in the Middle East.

"We will also use the trip to bridge the political divide, being one of the first between Jubilee and Opposition MPs," he said.