With these bloopers, who will now take Kiraithe seriously?

National Government Spokesman Eric Kiraithe has the uncanny ability to keep a straight face even when making the most outrageous statement.

And so it was when he recently reacted to public anger over an investigative report by the Standard on Sunday that revealed the racial discrimination and mistreatment of Kenyans by Chinese working in the standard gauge railway (SGR) project.

Instead of turning to the standard script of dismissing the story or promising to investigate — like the Transport ministry or Kenya Railways — Mr Kiraithe took a slippery slope when he defended the Chinese and blamed the Kenyan victims.

Without seeing the irony of his statement, he urged angry Kenyans to “appreciate the work” the Chinese are doing even if they stand accused of racism and maltreatment.

“I am not saying any worker should be discriminated [against]and humiliated in the workplace, but we must all appreciate that the operation of a modern train is a profession that calls for military-standard discipline,” he said.

The “military discipline” that Mr Kiraithe talks about includes the segregation of Kenyan and Chinese staff in the use of restaurant and toilet facilities — something incredible 55 years after independence from British colonialists.

But these are “small issues” that the more than 1,600 Kenyans working in the SGR should not complain loudly about, Mr Kiraithe appeared to say.

"Inward-looking, haki yetu (our right)-centred personalities have no place in this kind of profession,” he pontificated.

He did not stop there. Mr Kiraithe, who is supposed to be speaking on behalf of government and for Kenyans, appeared to question the abilities and the work ethic of local professionals.

And before you even imagine this cannot get any worse, Mr Kiraithe further supported the apparent gagging of Kenyan staff from leaking the dark secrets of their horrendous treatment.

“Are we gagging staff so that they don't post on social media? Unfortunately, yes,” he said without apologies — something Kenya Railways later denied.

With so many spokesmen at different layers of government, the role of the official government spokesman has somewhat diminished significantly over the years since the office was created in 2004.

The Presidential Strategic Communications Unit — created in 2013 to ensure coherence, clarity and consistency in messaging — has fared no better, with infighting and bloopers characterising the tenure of Mr Manoah Esipisu, who was recently eased out of the plum State House job for an ambassadorial position.

Back to Mr Kiraithe. His recent outrageous statement seemed to be in infamous company. In May 2016, for example, he accused unnamed neighbouring countries of funding the Opposition to topple the regime of President Uhuru Kenyatta, without adducing a shred of evidence.

And while he was police spokesman at the height of the post-election violence in 2008, he claimed that the video of police shooting to death a protester in Kisumu was staged, like a “Rambo movie”.

When the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) in 2008 released the confession of a police officer detailing the extrajudicial killings of Mungiki suspects, Mr Kiraithe went on the defensive in a manner only he knows best.

He claimed that some of the commission staff were on the payroll of the outlawed group.

In some ways, Mr Kiraithe reminds one of the first holder of his office, Dr Alfred Mutua, now Machakos Governor.

He was appointed by President Mwai Kibaki in June 2004 to articulate government policy to the public but talked himself into irrelevance. Nobody took the man seriously after a series of wild claims and rather comical performances.

With statements like the recent one that might as well have been written by the Chinese, history may not look kindly on Mr Kiraithe.