Tourism Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano finds herself under growing pressure from senators who have grown tired of her pattern of missing key oversight meetings on one of the most expensive projects under her watch.
The Sh42 billion redevelopment of the Bomas International Conference Centre has dragged on for months with limited clear answers, and lawmakers say her repeated failure to show up when summoned only makes the situation worse.
The project is meant to turn the old Bomas of Kenya into a modern international conference facility capable of hosting large summits and exhibitions. It is supposed to help Kenya compete better as a meetings and events destination. Yet progress has been slow. Reports show construction standing at around 34 percent while most of the planned time has already passed.
Senators want to know why costs remain high, why contracts keep changing, and who exactly is in charge of the money and the work.
Miano has been invited more than once. In July she was expected to explain contract variations, approvals and overall progress. Instead she wrote a letter saying the ministry had already answered the questions in an earlier response and asked for the meeting to be postponed.
Senators rejected that. They pointed out that it is not for a Cabinet Secretary to decide whether information given to Parliament is enough. One senator put it plainly: Cabinet Secretaries serve the people and must appear when required. The committee then issued a formal summons for early August after she had already been allowed to leave an earlier session early because she was unprepared.
This is not an isolated case. There have been other occasions where Miano either skipped sessions or sent junior officers who could not provide full answers.
Lawmakers from both the National Assembly and the Senate have complained that she treats parliamentary invitations lightly. When she does appear, the picture that emerges is often confusing. In a recent session before the Senate Standing Committee on Roads, Transportation and Housing, she told senators that the Ministry of Defence holds the actual contract and handles procurement and technical supervision.
Her own ministry, she said, only monitors progress and will take ownership once the building is finished. Senators were not impressed. They immediately demanded that Defence and the National Treasury produce the full contract, payment records, progress reports and any variations.
If Tourism is financing the project and will own the finished facility, they asked, why does the contract sit with another ministry?
The arrangement itself raises questions. The project was approved by Cabinet in 2023 when Bomas fell under a different ministry. Procurement was later handed to Defence, and the facility was moved to Tourism. Miano has described this as a government rearrangement, yet she admits her ministry needs the contract documents to track implementation properly.
That admission only strengthens the senators’ demand for transparency. Public money is involved, and the public has a right to know how it is being spent.
Critics argue that repeated absences and incomplete answers erode trust. Oversight exists so that large projects do not become black holes where costs rise without explanation and timelines slip without consequence.
When a Cabinet Secretary stays away or arrives without the necessary papers, it looks like avoidance. Miano has inspected the site and spoken of the project as a national flagship that will create jobs and boost tourism. Those statements sound good in public, but they do not replace the duty to answer detailed questions under oath in Parliament.
The senators are not asking for the impossible. They want the contract, the financial statements, proof of payments and clear timelines. They want to know whether the project will meet its completion targets and whether value for money is being achieved.
So far those answers have been hard to extract. Each time Miano fails to appear or points to another ministry, the questions only grow louder.
Kenya has seen too many big projects start with grand promises and end with unfinished work or inflated costs. The Bomas redevelopment is too important and too expensive to follow that path. Rebecca Miano holds the tourism portfolio. The facility is meant to serve her ministry’s goals.
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