Matiang'i: Candid look at diligent minister with chequered past

Speaking at a security forum in Mombasa last week, the Interior and National Coordination Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i made a statement that most probably left some observers in surprise.

“We in the security sector are the ones often accused of being unfriendly to the press,” Dr Matiang’i told a meeting of county commissioners and regional coordinators.

He went on: “It is policy, now as government, that we behave and transact as a civilised community. We have no policy of either harassing or mistreating or being uncooperative with the media.

"We support the media. It is our way of life now in Kenya. We respect the freedom of the press and we are bound by law, at all times, to support the work that the media does in our country.”

To anyone who has followed Dr Matiangi’s battles with the media since being appointed to the Cabinet in 2013 as Cabinet Secretary for ICT, his sentiments might have come across as ironic.

MEDIA

Dr Matiang’i holds the media with the same attitude that US President Donald Trump does — saboteurs of government, agents of the opposition and purveyors of “fake news”.

A case in point is the widespread crackdown he ordered against those who had participated in Nasa leader Raila Odinga’s mock swearing-in ceremony at Uhuru Park on January 31 last year.

“The government was and is aware of the role of some elements in the media who participated in the furtherance of this illegal act,” he said, forcing NTV journalists who had dared to air the event live to go into hiding.

“Their complicity would have led to the death of thousands of innocent Kenyan,” he sensationally claimed without elaborating to the public how the media had been roped in on such a nefarious plot.

A day after he urged his security officers to be more respectful of the media, President Uhuru Kenyatta named him as chairman of the National Development Implementation Cabinet Committee — a post that arguably elevates him high above his Cabinet colleagues.

PUNITIVE

That he was a fighter who brooked no nonsense showed early enough during President Kenyatta’s first Cabinet when he stared down and won against the local media owners over the digital migration debacle.

But during his tenure at ICT ministry, he also pushed for punitive laws aimed at bringing the “errant” media industry in the country under the heel of government.

One of the controversial laws he supported was the Kenya Information and Communication (Amendment) Act of 2013 which, among others, prescribes fines of up to two years in prison and fines of Sh500,000 for journalists or the publication of information deemed defamatory toward parliament, its committees, or its proceedings.

He also championed the creation of Government Advertising Agency, to handle all state advertising in 2015 at a time when the State was mulling denying the local media companies government advertising revenue due to what it termed as undue negative reporting of the Jubilee Administration.

By the time Charity Ngilu stepped aside as Lands minister in March 2015 over alleged corruption in her ministry, the President was so impressed by Dr Matiang’i’s work that he appointed him to hold brief at the Lands docket.

REFORMS

There, he pushed ahead with land reform initiatives, which often put him on a collision course with the National Land Commission which felt undermined by his actions.

In December 2015, President Kenyatta again turned to him to restore sanity in the Education sector following the previous year’s largely compromised national examinations for primary and secondary schools.

Within a year at the helm of the Education ministry, he restored confidence in the national exams, including sending home the Kenya National Examinations Council officials who presided over the compromised exams and rattling the entrenched profiteers in the sector.

In short order, Dr Matiang’i also reorganised the school calendar and introduced far-reaching changes in the administration of national examinations — moves that led to clean results for the first time in many years in 2016.

RUARAKA LAND

It was also during his time at the ministry of Education that Dr Matiang’i got entangled in a questionable land deal following his recommendation that businessman Francis Mburu be compensated Sh3.2 billion for a 13.7 acre piece of land where two public schools stand in Ruaraka, Nairobi.

In court documents, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission said that Dr Matiang’i and Education Principal Secretary Dr Belio Kipsang ignored recommendations of quality assurance and standards assessment team, which established that the land on which Ruaraka High school and Drive-In Primary stands is public.

“That in a blatant disregard of the report… Dr Fred Matiang’i put forth a formal request pursuant to Section 107(1) of the Land Act in a letter dated 17th March 2017,” the EACC says in court documents.

In addition, the Senate Public Accounts Committee, which investigated the matter, also recommended that Dr Matiang'i and Dr Kipsang be held accountable for controversial Ruaraka land transactions.

However, the Senate threw out the PAC report last year.

POLL CHAOS

When Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaiserry died in July last year, President Kenyatta once again tapped Dr Matiang’i to take charge of the sensitive docket, and was confirmed to lead the ministry when the President announced his Cabinet early last year.

He came down for heavy criticism for the government’s perceived high-handedness in quelling down opposition demonstrations that followed the August 8, 2017 presidential elections and the repeat one on October 26, 2017.

Although he touted the government’s credentials as a respecter of laws when he addressed the police chiefs in Mombasa this week, he was roundly condemned for the illegal manner in which he oversaw the deportation of Miguna Miguna, who jointly administered the oath of office to Mr Odinga last year.

Before being appointed to the Cabinet in 2013, he served as the regional representative in East Africa for the State University of New York Centre for International Development (CID), part of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany.

SACKED

He served as chief of party for the CID's Kenya Parliamentary Strengthening Programme from 2006-2012.

It was his engagement with this programme that led to problems with the University of Nairobi administration where he was a lecturer in the department of Literature, according to documents seen by Sunday Nation.

A letter from UoN on November 23, 2009 accused him of absconding duty for nearly five months, sealing his fate.

Prof Peter Mbithi, then the Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of finance and administration and now Vice Chancellor, wrote to him: “...it has been decided that your service in the University be terminated forthwith.”

Dr Matiang’i’s troubles followed a series of warnings to return to work after he initially asked for unpaid leave of absence in 2004.

ABSENCE

At the time, he was on a two-year unpaid leave from May 2004 to take up an appointment with United States Aid (USaid) and the State University of New York here in Nairobi.

After the two years elapsed, in April 2006, he requested for a further two-year leave extension until April 30, 2008.

When this date reached, he requested and was granted a year’s extension which ended in June 30, 2009.

However, he did not resume duty despite reminders prompting the university to take action.

The name of Dr Matiang'i is, however, listed at the University of Nairobi as a lecturer in the Department of Literature, indicating a possible review of the 2009 decision.