Deputy President William Ruto was forced to cancel plans to visit US and Canada this week.
The Star reported that the DP had been scheduled to fly out to the US on Monday for an extensive tour that would have culminated in a speech at the Open Governance Partnership Conference in Canada, scheduled for May 28 and 29.
Ruto's communications secretary David Mugonyi explained that the DP's schedule conflicted with President Uhuru Kenyatta's and both could be out of the country at the same time.
"His Excellency the President is scheduled to travel to South Africa for the presidential inauguration of Cyril Ramaphosa this Friday. Afterward, the president is expected in Vancouver, Canada, for a Women Deliver Conference scheduled for June 3-6,” Mugonyi told reporters.
It is reported that both the president and deputy president cannot be out of the country at the same time but history proves otherwise.
On February 26, 2014, Uhuru left for South Sudan for a peacekeeping mission and Ruto travelled to DR Congo to represent his boss at a COMESA Summit.
Again in 2016, President Uhuru flew out to Zambia for a function dubbed “The Path to Universal Access to Energy in Africa by 2025”, while Ruto travelled to Turkey for a World Humanitarian Summit.
The duo made headlines in 2016 when Uhuru appointed Ruto as acting president before travelling to The Hague to honour a summon by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The president, however, made it clear he was attending the ICC status conference in his personal capacity since he was charged before he became president and his status as head of state was not on trial.
