Ministers face Uhuru wrath over poor service delivery
President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto with his second term Cabinet Secretaries at State House, Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- President Kenyatta has of late shown open disdain for his Cabinet secretaries, begging the question how long some of them will stay in their dockets.
- The President also rubbished his entire Cabinet when he launched the Kenya Coast Guard.
- In April, the President caught Health CS Sicily Kariuki off guard when he directed her to build modern hospitals in a record time of one year.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. No better is this truism captured than in an image that has been circulating on social media that shows a not-so-happy President Uhuru Kenyatta in the company of ODM leader Raila Odinga and Sports CS Rashid Echesa.
The trio were at the mausoleum of the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga at Kang’o ka Jaramogi in Siaya where the President gave the CS a dressing down for the poor state of the facility.
President Kenyatta has of late shown open disdain for his Cabinet secretaries, begging the question how long some of them will stay in their dockets.
The President, the Nation understands, has also been admonishing his CSs privately so much that some dread receiving his call.
Though this could be his style of management, the President’s penchant for admonishing his key lieutenants who are supposed to deliver his vision for the country has left tongues wagging in the corridors of power.
Some of the CSs who have had the unfortunate encounter with the Head of State include Echesa, Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri and Health CS Sicily Kariuki.
The President also rubbished his entire Cabinet when he launched the Kenya Coast Guard and suggested he had to engineer the whole parastatal alongside Chief of Defence Forces General Samson Mwathethe fearing his own men and women would want to steal from the public.
UNMET PROMISES
Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen downplayed the issue, saying the President’s moves are informed by what the public perceives to be unmet promises.
“Let’s not read much into these issues, in reality the President is expressing impatience Kenyans have in unmet promises and, once in a while, this may come out in public,” he said.
According to an MP who was at Kang’o ka Jaramogi in Siaya, the President was concerned that Mr Echesa has hardly taken up his ministerial duties with the seriousness it deserves, but instead was giving undue focus on attending funerals and insulting other leaders.
“You seem to think that the work of a Cabinet secretary is to attend all funerals in western Kenya,” the President is reported to have told the shocked CS right in front of Mr Odinga and other senior government officials at the home of the former doyen of Opposition politics, Mr Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
ATTEND FUNERALS
“Wewe kazi yako ni kungoja wikiendi ifike halafu unaenda kwa kila matanga kutusi watu. Hiyo sio kazi ya waziri. Hio ni kazi ya wabunge. Ni Kama hujui kazi yako.”
(You seem not to know the job description of a Cabinet secretary. You only come alive on weekends where you attend every funeral with the sole aim of insulting your rivals. That is not the work of a CS. It is the work of politicians. You are not a politician but a CS).
According to the source, the President’s anger was triggered by reports that the Jaramogi Mausoleum has been neglected by the State even though it is a gazetted national monument.
The grave was gazetted as a national monument in 2005 by the then Minister of State for National Heritage Najib Balala as a cultural, historical monument in remembrance of Jaramogi, who was Kenya’s first vice-president. The historical site is a one stop community museum and a Luo heroes’ exhibition centre.
TOURED SITE
The mausoleum is managed by the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) in partnership with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation (JOOF).
However, when he toured the site, and after laying the wreath in memory of Jaramogi, the President was told that NMK had neglected its role and was hardly participating in managing the site.
There were complaints that staff have not been paid for many months prompting the President to intervene. However, when he turned to the ministry to establish the cause of the neglect, Mr Echesa was clueless as it appeared he had not received a brief from the technical staff.
It is at this point that the President decided to give him a tongue-lashing in full view of all those who were in the compound.
The CS was speechless. That the President could unleash such a torrent on Mr Echesa right in the face of Mr Odinga couldn’t be more poignant. Last August, the CS was forced to take on the former PM daring him to engineer his sacking from the Cabinet, in reference to what he said were comments the Opposition leader was making in the context of the March 9 handshake.
EDGED OUT
"This government is led by President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto and Raila should stop intimidating those of us who have been appointed to serve as CSs. I dare him, if he is the appointing authority, let him sack me,” a furious Mr Echesa said.
Besides Mr Echesa, who feared that he could be edged out in favour of ODM adherents, there are some CSs who are reported to have been extremely concerned about their fate following reports of a Cabinet purge.
Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri was also on the receiving end in October when the President opened the Nairobi International Show over the National Cereals and Produce Board failure to pay genuine farmers.
The President, speaking in mother tongue, told Mr Kiunjuri that he will be in trouble if, once again, money meant for maize farmers is paid out to well-connected individuals.
MAIZE IMPORTERS
“Mungiriha nimukuona,” which translates to, “If you pay, you’ll be in hot soup”.
In the maize scandal, which has seen several National Cereals and Produce Board officials charged in court, maize importers were paid millions of shillings for deliveries while genuine farmers were left out.
In April, the President caught Health CS Sicily Kariuki off guard when he directed her to build modern hospitals in a record time of one year. While opening Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, the President seemed oblivious of the bureaucracy in the procurement process in government.
The Tenwek eye and dental clinic, which cost Sh300m and has a capacity to handle 20,000 patients and conduct 5,000 surgeries yearly, impressed the President so much that he wondered why the same can’t be replicated in government hospitals.
The President told Ms Kariuki, who was present, to supervise construction of four similar clinics in Eldoret, Nyeri, Nairobi and Mombasa by next year, or risk losing her job.
