President Uhuru Kenyatta's cousin was recently appointed to a prestigious government board.
Kathleen Kihanya, was appointed by Industry and Trade Secretary Peter Munya as a board member of the Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency.
“The Cabinet Secretary for Industry, Trade and Co-operatives appoints Jacqueline Muga, Kathleen Kihanya, Mark Bichachi, to be members of the Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency Board, for a period of three years, with effect from August 9, 2019,’ stated Munya in the gazette notice on Friday.
Reports by the Business Daily disclosed that Kathleen also runs a public relations and marketing consultancy, Aces Ahead.
In September 2018, she stirred a storm over ownership of prime land on which the developer, Banda Homes was putting up a Ksh1 billion estate for sale.
She claimed that Banda Homes had misled potential buyers on the land. However, the firm strongly disputed the claims, stating it had purchased the land from another Kenyatta kin, Kamau Ngengi.
Three years ago, Sundales International Limited was found to have been listed among companies that should get preferential treatment for tenders reserved for the youth, women and the disabled.
Ms. Kihanya also shares the firm's directorship with Uhuru's sister Nyokabi Kenyatta Muthama.
The three appointees are set to join the State agency, which was formed by merging the boards of the Export Promotion Council and Brand Kenya.
The establishment of the agency is in line with an earlier presidential directive on the key objective of the integrated National Exports Development and Promotion Strategy, which the government launched mid-2018, and aims at growing Kenya’s exports at an average rate of 25 per cent per annum.
