The curse of Kibaki’s Finance ministers

• Uhuru becomes the third Treasury boss to bow out during Kibaki’s 10-year tenure

Mr Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday became the third Finance minister to bow out of office during President Kibaki’s 10-year tenure.

Mr Kenyatta follows the footsteps of Mr David Mwiraria, who was the first Finance minister under the Kibaki regime, and Mr Amos Kimunya, who, despite vowing that he would not resign, was forced out over the Grand Regency Hotel scandal.

It was under Mr Kenyatta’s tenure at the Treasury that President Kibaki’s legacy suffered a lot, with the shilling touching a low of Sh107 to the dollar, inflation hitting a high of 19.73 per cent and economic growth slowing down.

Mr Kenyatta, a graduate of Amherst College in the United States, was one of the main men behind Mr Kibaki’s controversial ascent to the presidency to serve a second term after he resolved to keep off from running as a presidential candidate in his favour.

That is why it must have been a hard week for President Kibaki to watch Mr Kenyatta, whom he presented an award for being the best ‘A’ level history student at St Mary’s School in Nairobi in 1979, committed to trial.

Supplementary budget

This is not the first time Mr Kenyatta, who retained his Deputy Prime Minister’s post, has been under pressure to resign.

In 2009, Mr Kenyatta was taken to task over a Sh10 billion discrepancy in his supplementary budget.

He was forced to withdrew the supplementary budget and table a fresh one. Unlike his predecessors, Mr Kenyatta resigns not because of allegations of corruption but crimes against humanity.

Mr Kenyatta replaced Kipipiri MP Amos Kimunya at Treasury after Mr Kimunya stepped down following a vote of no confidence over the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel (now Laico Regency). He was later moved to the Ministry of Trade.

On February 1, 2006, President Kibaki lost his first Finance minister, three years into his first term.

Arguably the most soft-spoken of his Finance men, Mr Mwiraria was pushed out of office after he was implicated in a report by then Ethics and Governance PS John Githongo over the Anglo Leasing scandal.

Mr Mwiraria claimed he was misled by his permanent secretary at the time to authorise Sh7 billion tenders for procurement of Kenya police forensic laboratories and a sophisticated passport equipment system.

Known to be one of President Kibaki’s most vicious defenders, Mr Mwiraria went down protesting his innocence.

He was later cleared of any wrongdoing following some investigations and returned to Cabinet.

A rugby player in his school days, Mr Kenyatta is credited for having been the first Finance minister to implement the 1,800cc cap on the type of vehicles allocated to Cabinet ministers, permanent secretaries and other senior government officials.

But this did not come without a fight; he had to face a parliamentary committee under a cloud of allegations of irregularity in the tendering for the Volkswagen Passats.

He has also been the key player in reviving an economy that was on its knees after the post-election violence with his stimulus package.