The iron lady of public service

Esther Koimett and then Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua have a light moment as they appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee PSC meeting in Nairobi, April 12, 2012. They were answering into the De La Rue minting saga. Photo/File  Esther Koimett and then Permanent Secretary Joseph Kinyua have a light moment as they appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee PSC meeting in Nairobi, April 12, 2012. They were answering into the De La Rue minting saga. Photo/File

By Evelyn Situma

In Summary

It has not always been easy to balance her demanding job and a young family, but with the right support she has found a balance.

Esther Koimett welcomes us into her office with a wide smile. Her body, respect and welcoming grin have remained unchanged over the 25 years that she has been in the Civil Service.

The secret to her fitness and enviable physique, she says, has to do with her regular routine of taking a walk up the stairs from her office on 2nd floor to the 15th floor where her boss sits.

But apart from that, she swims whenever time allows. These are two activities she has kept to over the years. This is how she has been able to deal with the pressures of her demanding job, evident from the stack of files in every corner of her office.

“This (the papers) is my job. This is what I deal with on a daily basis,” she says, talking about the piles of papers in her cabinet and side table.

It’s in this very office that government transactions worth billions of shillings have been hatched and concluded.

These include privatisation of the national carrier Kenya Airways, KCB, Housing Finance, TPS Serena, Mumias Sugar Company Ltd, Safaricom Ltd, KenGen, Tele Post and Communication, Kenya Railways Corporation and Kenya-Re either through Initial Public Offer (IPO) or by getting a strategic investor, through sale of government owned stakes.

It’s these transactions that Esther takes pride in. More so for the sheer fact that they have contributed significantly in building the capital market, to what it is today.

“The impact privatisation has had on the Nairobi Securities Exchange has been tremendous. We have given a lot of depth to the NSE through the privatisation programme,” says Esther as she takes stock of her milestones at the National Treasury. 

As the Investment secretary, Esther’s work involves looking at government institutions and recommending whether they should be sold to private investors through a common process referred to as privatisation or not.

At present, her team is waiting for the conclusion of two transactions that already got Parliament’s blessings, the sale of government shares at Kenya Wines Agency Ltd (Kwal) and three high-end hotels namely the Hilton and Inter Continental and the Serena Mountain Lodge in the Mt Kenya National Park National Park.

Privatisation of publicly-owned sugar companies, Kenya Meat Commission, New KCC and 13 other state institutions are some of the others that her privatisation team are working on.

Although she acknowledges that her job is tough, Esther who is a technocrat, wife and a  mother of three - a daughter and two sons - has learnt over time to balance family and career.

“I’m much more of an office-to-home person. My life is between my work and my family,” she says. Even though she admits balancing the two has not been easy.

“Sometimes to balance that time, when you have a young family and a demanding job, can be a little difficult.  But I am lucky that I have a very supportive husband,” she adds.

She believes women can juggle between family and career without compromising either. “I often tell young mothers, it’s really important to spend time with your children when they are young. We need, as mothers, to find that balance. Personally, I believe some of the challenges we are seeing in society today among our youth, may have to do with the role of the mother in bringing up the children and shaping their values.”