Health Principal Secretary Fred Sigor during a briefing by Cabinet
Secretaries at Harambee House on April 03,2014. PHOTO/ANN KAMONI
All week, Cabinet Secretaries have been modestly illuminating their achievements during their first year in office.
It
has been a spectacular show of competence from which we are unlikely to
be distracted by security threats, transport strikes and arrogant
doctors.
From the country’s first professional,
non-political, technocratic Cabinet, results have spouted like water at a
fountain. Compared to the ministers appointed by President Kibaki in
2003, the Cabinet secretaries are – without exception – paragons of
competence, models of professionalism and champions of efficiency.
Where
Mr Kibaki had 24 bumbling ministers knocking into each other to create a
fine mess of things, the current 18 lean, mean, clean women and men are
all about getting the job done.
Measuring the CSs against the ministers Mr Kibaki appointed is not unlike comparing bananas and oranges.
Engineer
Michael Kamau has scorched the job ratings of Mr John Michuki in the
transport docket and that of Mr Raila Odinga in Roads and
Infrastructure.
Forget the pretend revival of the
railways, PSV workers wearing uniform and demolishing buildings on road
reserves. The CS is doing big things only – like permanently keeping
matatus on strike, banning night travel for the poor and constructing the standard gauge railway.
Where
Mr Kalonzo Musyoka – as Foreign Affairs minister – focused on useless
things like the Sudan peace process and installing a transitional
federal government in Somalia, CS Amina Mohammed has restored the
country’s voice in the international community.
Kenya
coughs at the UN, and the Security Council catches the flu; it speaks at
the AU, and imperialists check into the asylum; it shows up at the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, and the ICC goes into a coma.
WORKING QUIETLY
Two
men could not hack what Ms Anne Waiguru is doing. Without boring us
with statistics and speeches on evidence-based decision making in the
style of Prof Anyang Nyong’o, the Planning CS is giving real money to
real women and youth through the Uwezo Fund.
In
Devolution, previously Local Government when the burly Karisa Maitha
went round the country frightening councillors, she only needs to skip
one governors’ meeting and the entire ensemble will be bathed in a cold
sweat.
Mrs Phyllis Kandie, who heads Tourism, has not
taken over the KICC from Kanu in the style of Mr Raphael Tuju. Nor is
she is talking a mile a minute in the fashion of then Trade and Industry
minister Mukhisa Kituyi. She is working quietly.
At
Education, Prof Jacob Kaimenyi matches every degree Prof George Saitoti
ever earned. That is why his signature project to deliver laptops to all
standard one pupils has taken off like a rocket, blowing smoke at the humble aspirations of delivering free primary education to eight million children a year.
As
Finance minister, Mr David Mwiraria was in everyone’s hair about the in
du plum rule, bloating the wage bill and reducing interest rates. CS
Henry Rotich has introduced VAT on luxuries like books and newspapers and persuaded the President and his deputy to take a 20 per cent pay cut.
Where
Chris Murungaru spent the entire first year as National Security
sweating the big stuff, the CS is as cool as a cucumber. Mr Joseph Ole
Lenku does not break a sweat disappearing terrorists, launching the
Nyumba Kumi initiative and is the epitome of eloquence.
Out
of respect for age, a comparison between Mr Kibaki and his successor
would not be appropriate and might hurt the old man’s feelings.
kwamchetsi@formandcontent.co.ke
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