President William Ruto has appointed former Deputy Inspector General of Police Noor Gabow as Consul General in Haiti.
In the latest communication of appointments in senior ranks of the Executive and state corporations President Ruto listed Gabow among the new officials, who include Gerald Nyaoma Arita (Deputy Governor, CBK), Prof Adams Oloo (Adviser, Strategy and Communications), Dr Silvester Okumu Kasuku (Adviser, Governance), Maj (Rtd) Ali Mahat Somane (Adviser, Security Affairs) and Joe Owaka Ager (Secretary, Governance).
Others appointed to parastatals are former Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria (Chairperson Public procurement Regulatory Board, Peter Kenneth (Chairperson, KEBS), Bruno Oguda Obodha (MD, East African Portland Cement Company) and Douglas Murei Kaibos (CEO, Central Rift Valley Water Works Development Agency).
In July, Gabow was redeployed within the public service. This was soon after he took charge of the deployment of the Kenyan police officers to Haiti. He arrived with the team at Port-au-Prince on June 25, 2024.
During a press briefing on Friday, Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi announced that Kenya would open consulates in Haiti and Guangzhou, China.
A consulate is a smaller diplomatic mission, usually located in a major city other than the capital, where the embassy is situated. When located in the capital, they are at a lower scale of a full-fledged diplomatic mission.
Consulates focus primarily on providing services to their country’s citizens in the host country, such as issuing passports, providing assistance during emergencies, and helping with legal and administrative matters. They may also promote trade and economic relations between the two countries and facilitate business exchanges.
Already, Kenya has at least 27 consulates that include Los Angeles, Somaliland and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Perth, Linz, Dhaka, Antwerp, Sofia, Vancouver, Nicosia, Hamburg, Athens, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Nagoya, Amman, Beirut, Casablanca, Lagos, Karachi, Manila, Belgrade, Singapore, Geneva, Istanbul, Kiev, Dubai and Sana’a.
The main functions of a consul general are diplomatic representation in official and diplomatic events, protecting the interests of the home country as well as the interests of their citizens.
Gabow posting to Haiti in the new capacity lays ground for long-term diplomatic engagements with Haiti, even as the proposal to convert the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission in Haiti into a United Nations peacekeeping mission remains under consideration.
Gabow has extensive experience in peace keeping having served in the United Nations peacekeeping missions in former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and 2001 and 2002. He served as a trainer, adviser and investigator.
From 2003 to 2007, he worked a a mission management officer in charge of West Africa in the Police Division, Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN headquarters, in New York.
He also served as the UN police adviser to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 2007 to 2008.
