Gachagua hosts new UK High Commissioner Neil Wigan
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua hosted the new British High Commissioner to Kenya, Neil Wigan. Their discussions revolved around socio-economic ties between Kenya and the United Kingdom. : https://shorturl.at/dAOVZ
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00:00 This is Kenya tea.
00:02 And I went to Kericho recently because it's beautiful up in the tea country.
00:06 It's really lovely.
00:08 And this is Kenya coffee.
00:10 Which we just talked about. Perfect. And from Mount Kenya, from your area.
00:14 My office is in charge of coordination of development partnerships.
00:19 And if there is anything that you feel needs some intervention from the presidency,
00:27 we have set up a unit in our office to unlock things and get things moving.
00:33 And your predecessor, Jane Marriott, called on me 2, 3, 4 times for certain things that were stuck
00:40 and we were able to unlock them.
00:43 The Geothermal program in Meningai, we actually went with her there.
00:49 We also went to Mandera with her for that program on the border.
00:53 I want to say that my office is open to you and your staff.
00:57 And if there is any issue that you think you need some intervention from the presidency
01:02 to move a little bit faster, to make it easier, to lessen bureaucracy,
01:07 we are open and we are ready to be at your service.
01:10 So we would like to, in a way, the development partner and the aid partnership is important,
01:15 but we much more want to move into an economic partnership, security partnerships that you talked about,
01:21 and to be much more focused on how we can deal with challenges together
01:25 and where Kenya offers solutions to global problems.
01:28 So climate change, renewable energy, all these things that you are doing more successfully than us.
01:34 You have a higher percentage of renewable energy than we do.
01:37 You have the potential to do really close cooperation on these things.
01:42 And you mentioned security cooperation, so yes, a lot of my background is in this.
01:46 I visited Kenyan troops in Somalia in my last job many times
01:50 and I saw what a fantastic job they do.
01:52 And we want to keep that going forward.
01:54 And I was with the CS of Defence last week and we went up to see our training facility in Lykipia,
02:00 just under Mount Kenya.
02:02 But also your new training facility is there, which we are supporting with the US.
02:06 So we really want to keep that security cooperation going
02:10 because it keeps all of our citizens safe here in Kenya, globally, and in the region.
02:15 And we see huge benefits to both sides from that.
02:17 On trade relationship, yes, we would like a balanced trade relationship.
02:20 I think at the moment, as you said, it's slightly in our favour, but it's actually quite close.
02:25 And I think that's what we want to do.
02:27 We want a trade relationship which clearly benefits both sides.
02:31 And we also want to see more British investments coming into Kenya.
02:36 So Menangai, Nairobi Railway City, the whole package that the President and my Prime Minister agreed to COP27.
02:43 We want to keep all of that really moving forward.
02:46 So we may come to you for help.
02:48 [END]
02:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]