Waiguru and Harambee House intrigues

Of all the Cabinet secretaries, Ms Anne Waiguru is the most conspicuous – and, perhaps, the most abrasive.

Though she cuts a figure of modesty, and her critics think she is haughty, what she never hides is her love for power suits, R&B, and strictness to detail.

“I cannot stand mediocrity…if you are writing a memo write in proper English, make sure the font is right, and the margins are okay. I am fussy about small things like that…,” she once told an interviewer.

Inside television stations, where she frequents morning drive and primetime evening shows, she is loved by presenters for her ability to debate and synthesise complex issues. She has masterfully cultivated the media to her advantage.

“I am just an ordinary girl,” she once told a reporter when asked about the power she spews from her Devolution and Planning docket.

It is this power that has seen Ms Waiguru earn her friends and haters in equal measures.

“In this kind of job that I do you are bound to have people who like you and others who don’t like you. Those who don’t like you would say all manner of things,” she said during a primetime TV programme two months ago.

TIN-GODS
Harambee House, where her office is located, has since Independence been the centre of intrigues, chicanery, and of power too. It has been the country’s citadel of fortune, might and administration.

Before her were various commanding politicos who wielded immense power and who struggled – just as Ms Waiguru – to survive through their terms.

“This was the centre of the executive and was always associated with both formal and informal power. Although in the current political dispensation the Executive has lost its powers, the old order perception is still there,” says Dr Karuti Kanyinga, an Associate Professor at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi.

During Jomo Kenyatta’s years, Harambee House hosted the most powerful individuals who included Mbiyu Koinange, a Minister of State, and Geoffrey Kariithi, the then Head of Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet. Attorney General Charles Njonjo, who occupied the adjacent building, completed the Kenyatta troika.

Under Daniel arap Moi, after Kenyatta’s death in 1978, there emerged a new centre of power which brought in Minister of State Nicholas Biwott, Internal Security’s GG Kariuki, former prisons’ warden-turned-businessman Joshua Kulei, Mr Njonjo, and Heads of Civil Service Simeon Nyachae and Hezekiah Oyugi.

There were also small regional tin-gods who wielded immense power under the banner of the Kanu party. Apart from Mr Kulei, all the others were based at Harambee House.

“The current Constitution has changed the landscape. We shall never have the Koinanges and Biwotts again,” says Dr Kanyinga.

CENTER OF OPERATION
During Jomo Kenyatta and Moi years, Harambee House controlled the provincial administration, civil service and the internal security docket.

Those who worked there think that by being the centre of operation, organisation and co-ordination of the national government, the individuals working there were perceived to be strongmen.

“We did not have power per se. What we had, and those before me, was immense responsibility,” says Joseph Kaguthi a former Provincial Commissioner and long-serving provincial commissioner who worked at Harambee House for 13 years. “

We were privy to lots of information and intelligence and as you know information is power.”

During the Kibaki presidency, there emerged a new troika that was composed of Minister of State for Internal Security Chris Murungaru, Constitutional minister Kiraitu Murungi and Water Minister Martha Karua.

While these were perceived to handle the political side of the presidency, there was also the old-generation of Kibaki golfers and old-boy networks.

They included Solomon Karanja, Peter Kanyago and by far, First Lady Lucy Kibaki.

GRAFT CHARGES
Today, and although she was a little-known bureaucrat before she was named CS, Ms Waiguru has become the most visible of all Jubilee ministers.

“She exhibits formal power and lots of influence because of the large docket that she holds. It touches on almost everything that Kenya wants to do,” says Dr Kanyinga.

Had the Sh25 billion National Youth Service (NYS) turn-around not spanned into a corruption totem, the former Transparency International intern-turned bureaucrat would have emerged as the feisty heroine of the Jubilee government.

By going to court to sue Cord leader Raila Odinga for linking her to the NYS loss of Sh791 million, the CS wants not only to safeguard her reputation but her place within the government too. She is not alone. Others have been devoured for less.

Still in the courts is another case filed by one of President Kibaki’s powerful minister’s Dr Chris Murungaru who sued former Permanent Secretary for Ethics John Githongo for defamation after he linked him to the Anglo-Leasing scandal.

Two of Ms Waiguru’s colleagues in the Cabinet, Transport CS Michael Kamau and Land’s Charity Ngilu, are facing corruption and interference charges respectively and Waiguru’s tormentors would love to see her thrown under the same bus too.

Before the NYS saga emerged, Ms Waiguru was known for her acumen – the symbol of a hardworking CS. 

RESPONSIBILITY AND DANGER

In July, her ministry won the UN public service transformation award for the Huduma Kenya initiative out of 800 entrants. NYS eclipsed all that as she defied calls to step aside.

“People don’t step aside because they have been asked to... I was the whistle-blower on a fraud that was attempted at NYS… how that was turned around to ask the whistle-blower to step aside is something that personally I have not been able to put my mind around,” she said then.

But the CID, whom she invited to investigate the fraud, have found impropriety at the ministry and recommended the prosecution of 21 officials from the ministry and NYS.

 “Over the years, Ministers of State were used to shield the President from any blame. They take the bullet on behalf of the President.

Mbiyu Koinange was always blamed for failures in the Kenyatta government and so was Nicholas Biwott,” says Prof Macharia Munene, a history professor at USIU. “That way both Kenyatta and Moi appeared to look innocent.”

With the NYS scandal hanging on her like the Sword of Damocles, Ms Waiguru must be realising, like the Greek Dionysius, that power comes with both responsibility and danger.

Whether she emerges from Harambee House unscathed remains to be seen.