How merit, reforms were swapped for patronage in State appointments

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s appointment of board members of State corporations is a major departure from the radical reforms the government has been touting. 
In a special issue of the Kenya Gazette of April 27, the Jubilee administration appointed 302 individuals to the boards of State corporations.
In his State of the Nation address to Parliament on March 26, a day after the code of governance of State Corporations dubbed Mwongozo was launched, President Kenyatta pledged to ensure new parastatal appointments were done according to the recommendations.

“I directed that all vacant positions in the boards be filled. I will personally oversee all appointed and currently serving board members formally sign onto the code. This will address governance and management challenges in our parastatals,” he said.

The framework was developed in the course of more than a year by the Presidential Task Force on Parastatal Reforms co-chaired by President Kenyatta’s senior advisor on Constitution and Legislative Affairs, Mr Abdikadir Mohamed, and Commercial Bank of Africa CEO Isaac Awuondo.

But the appointments, which have attracted mixed reactions from the public and the opposition Cord, deviate from the proposed reforms. A key recommendation of the Mwongozo code was to end the practice of recycling political failures.

Among the recent 302 appointees, the majority are politicians who lost in the 2013 General Election, including Mr Musikari Kombo, who twice lost the Bungoma senatorial seat to Senate Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula, former MPs Raphael Wanjala (Budalang’i), Marsden Madoka (Mwatate), Dr Robert Monda (Nyaribari Chache), Musa Sirma (Eldama Ravine), Walter Nyambati (Kitutu Masaba), Henry Obwocha (West Mugirango), Omingo Magara (South Mugirango) and Soita Shitanda (Malava).

President Kenyatta also appointed one-time nominated MP Richard Leakey to chair the Kenya Wildlife Service board, as well as former Eldoret Mayor Josiah Magut.
Former President Mwai Kibaki’s aide de camp, Mr Geoffrey King’ang’i, who resigned to vie for the Mbeere South parliamentary seat, has been appointed chairman of the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB).

Other politicians appointed to the boards are Abdul Bahari, Suleiman Kamolleh, Julius Sunkuli, Taib A. Taib, John Koech, Eric Nyamunga, Samuel Poghisio, Mwangi Kiunjuri, Andrew Sunkuli, Hilary Alila, Kalembe Ndile and Wavinya Ndeti.

There is a feeling the appointments made on Monday were done with the 2017 General Election in mind. “It is clear that President Kenyatta has engaged the reverse gear  in terms of what has been achieved on parastatal reforms. We are back to appointments based on political patronage and loyalty,” Nation columnist Jaindi Kisero wrote on Thursday. 

NEGATIVE POLITICS

But according to State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu, the appointment of former politicians should be applauded by all since the appointees will not engage in negative and destructive politics.
“In the past, losers in political contests would be in the ‘cold’ until the next elections and they would spend their time undermining the incumbent.

Our Jubilee parties’ nomination rules seek to circumvent this by ensuring that losers in the nomination process, having achieved a threshold of votes, would be incorporated at various levels of appointive positions, in keeping with their qualifications, so that no leader, able and willing to serve the people, is excluded,” Mr Esipisu told Sunday Nation.

According to the task force, the Mwongozo proposals were supposed to be taken to Parliament for approval after which the government was to establish a new outfit, the Government Investment Corporation (GIC) in the Office of the President. The GIC would have powers to hire and fire State corporation chiefs.

In other words, Cabinet secretaries were to be left out in appointing the board members. That has not happened, and the majority of recent board appointments were made by Cabinet secretaries.
The task force had also recommended merging some corporations or transferring some functions to counties, ultimately trimming the number of parastatals from 262 to 187. Had that happened, the government had projected it would save Sh3.5 billion annually.

The GIC chairman the President was to appoint would be a Kenyan with at least a master’s degree, five years serving as a board member and no less than 10 years in senior management. GIC board members had to have at least a first degree and service in senior management position for at least six years, in addition to being a member of the Institute of Directors.
Parastatal board members that GIC was subsequently to appoint were to have no less than a bachelor’s degree and belong to a professional body.

On that provision, questions could arise whether musician Charles Njagua Kanyi, popularly known as Jaguar, who was appointed to the board of the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (Nacada), would have qualified.

Similarly, Mr Ndile was appointed a member of the Water Services Regulatory Board without adequate qualifications, while there is a possible conflict of interest regarding the appointment of Ms Nancy Karigithu to the board of the Kenya Maritime Authority.

As recent as February this year, she was the director general of the authority.