Questions raised on Uhuru’s Cabinet choices

All eyes are now on Parliament as nominees in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s new lineup announced on Friday prepare for vetting and public scrutiny ahead of their formal appointment.

By unveiling his Cabinet, President Kenyatta may have ended the anxiety that had gripped the nation over the inordinate delay that some blamed on disagreements but questions immediately emerged over some of his picks, and the role of the new position of Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS).

During his 4pm announcement on Friday, the President said that on the advice of the Public Service Commission, he had established the position of CAS in all the 22 ministries to help the Cabinet Secretaries to better coordinate the running of the affairs of their respective ministries.

ROLES
The creation of this new position, that some have compared to the assistant minister post, has stirred questions on how the occupants will relate to the Cabinet Secretary, the Principal Secretary — who is the accounting officer, and senior ministry technocrats. 

Multiple Sunday Nation interviews with experts indicate that among the questions that will have to be answered in Parliament and in releasing a detailed job description are: What is the scope of the CAS’s role?

Is the position senior to a PS? Will those named be vetted by House committees and what will be the benchmark of such scrutiny, if it happens, given that there are no constitutional or legislative demands about the role?

How different is this position from that of principal administrative secretary or even that of director of administration, which are part of the mainstream Civil Service structure?

BUREAUCRACY
On Saturday, a senior public servant, who we cannot name because he will appear to be contradicting the President, said the new position will only increase bureaucracy.

“As civil servants, we are being overloaded with bosses, meaning decision-making is tedious. We now have a CS then a CAS, and PS.

"In some ministries, there are more than one PS. Don’t forget we have secretaries who head departments and directors,” the public servant said.

But Senate Majority whip Irungu Kangata said the President was within his powers to establish the office, which he described as “sufficient relief” to CSs who have in the past complained of being burdened by some tasks that eat into their time.

“As long as the Constitution gives the President the power to establish offices in public offices, then President Kenyatta was within the law to create the offices,” Mr Kangata said.

WAGE BILL
He further denied claims that the new offices of CAS will clog the Civil Service hierarchy and heighten the ballooning wage bill.

“There are 22 CAS positions in total, which is too small a number in the whole government,” he said, pointing out that the most important thing is that CSs now have somebody who can take charge of office as they attend to other issues like appearing before House committees.

“The CSs have been complaining they are forced to carry out some functions that make them lose track of serious business of office. With the coming of CASs, they will have somebody to take care of their concerns.”

REWARDS
University of Nairobi lecturer Herman Manyora also weighed in, pointing out that the creation of the CAS post was an affront to the Constitution.

“This is impunity being executed by people who opposed the enactment of the Constitution in 2010,” Mr Manyora said.

“If he wanted to create an office, it cannot be above or parallel to that of the PS. The President has powers to create an office but only below the PS,” he said.

Mr Manyora warns that lack of clarity on the exact roles among these positions will undermine effective functioning of the public service.

SERVICE DELIVERY
Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa said the President may have brought back the position of assistant minister through the backdoor “to reward his political friends”.

Ordinarily, there are ministries with the officers designated as Principal Administrative Secretaries in the Civil Service.

Such positions are found in ministries that are large and contain sensitive departments.

In some cases, the positions are designated in ministries where the PSs are new in public service.

In such cases, the Principal Administrative Secretaries act as the bulwark for such PSs. All ministries have positions of director of administration.
VETTING
Parliament will also have to deal with questions on the integrity, academic and professional backgrounds of some nominees.

The post-primary education qualifications of Mr Rashid Mohammed have been questioned and it will remain to be seen if he will prove his critics wrong.

Mr Mohammed is also a controversial figure who, as ODM youth leader and later Jubilee campaigner, has had to come out several times to deny he was involved in organising political violence in Kakamega County.   

Then there is former MP Gideon Mungaro who, even before he was picked to serve as CAS in the ministry of Land, was in the crosshairs of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions over land allocation at Chembe Kibambambushe settlement scheme.

He is alleged to have used the Constituency Development Fund during his tenure as MP to allocate himself a large piece of land in the scheme.

GENDER PARITY
The outgoing director, Mr Keriako Tobiko, himself a nominee for the Environment and Forestry docket, was pushing to have Mr Mungaro charged with fraud related cases in the Malindi law courts.

President Kenyatta has also found himself with the headache of gender balance at the end of a week when activists asked for more women to be included in Cabinet.

A December 2016 High Court ruling found that the Head of State had flouted the two-thirds gender rule in the appointment of the Cabinet Secretaries in 2013.

JUDGMENT SUSPENDED

In a case filed by two lobby groups, Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (Creaw) and Community Advocacy and Awareness Trust (Crawn Trust), Justice Joseph Onguto ruled the Cabinet picked in 2013 did not meet the two thirds gender rule.

“A declaration is hereby issued that the President has acted in contravention of the Constitution in nominating, appointing and maintaining a Cabinet that does not meet the two third gender requirement under the law,” Justice Onguto said in a ruling that also indicted the National Assembly for approving nominees for Cabinet positions when it was clear that it would effectively result in a violation of the law.

Mindful that the verdict will consequently affect the outgoing Cabinet, the High Court suspended the judgement for eight months pending the outcome of the August 2017 General Election to allow time to rectify the situation.

GITHU MUIGAI'S FUTURE
Friday’s appointment of six women out of the 22 Cabinet Secretaries falls short of the requirement. 

The president’s silence on the fate of Attorney General Githu Muigai has also left room for speculation on what his next course of action would be.

In the past, there have been suggestions that Prof Muigai would be dropped with individuals such as the Solicitor General Njee Muturi angling to replace him.

But with some insiders suggesting that the AG’s advice has been critical in stabilising the Jubilee ship at a time the opposition wave threatened to run it aground, there could be real possibility that he would serve in Mr Kenyatta’s second term as the chief government lawyer.