UhuRuto have no moral authority to campaign for reelection. They cannot run a dysfunctional government for four years, preside over devastating tribalism and crippling looting of public coffers and still want a further mandate. Another term to do what? Preside over the funeral of Kenya?
What happened to Jubilee’s ambitious election pledges of 2013? Were the Jubilee manifesto and the promise of a perfect digital government a deliberate political fraud?
Are Cabinet and Principal Secretaries to blame for the government’s massive failures? How, when they have President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto supervising them 24-7? Are the two in charge or is there a destructive disconnect somewhere that these officials are exploiting?
This could be evidence of incurable leadership and management deficiencies afflicting the Jubilee high command?
Why would PSs and CSs derail their bosses’ goals? Have they abandoned service delivery to pursue personal gain? And why would they abandon their legitimate mandates and still be allowed to occupy office?
Recently, PSs were reshuffled. State House said it was to improve “teamwork in government”. But it was a mere face-saving knee-jerk reaction following revelations of PSs’ insubordination, crippling state departments.
The latest was the ugly stand-off between PS Patrick Nduati and Water CS Eugene Wamalwa over tendering for construction of Thwake Dam in Ukambani. The PS had defied the CS, AG Githu Muigai, the main bilateral donor — the African Development Bank — and a parliamentary committee, and he had arrogantly awarded the tender to a higher bidder who had not been the best vetted. Many believed he had been compromised. Otherwise, why the determination to risk abortion of a major public project that could help Jubilee brag and lure voters for reelection?
Logic demands summary dismissal of top officials who are openly insubordinate, corrupt or unpatriotic. Nduati and Nicholas Muraguri deserved to be sacked. Failure to do so could be interpreted to mean their misbehavior was sanctioned from above or they are sacred cows or, God forbid, the presidency is clueless about their transgressions.
Kenyans saw similar shenanigans at Afya House between Health CS Cleopa Mailu and Muraguri. During the inquest into the NYS scandal, then PS Peter Mang’iti lamented of being sabotaged by juniors who were getting contradictory briefs from then Devolution CS Anne Waiguru. Recently there were murmurs from Foreign Affairs about a fallout between CS Amina Mohamed and PS Monica Juma over senior appointments to Kenya’s foreign missions.
It is worth noting that the ministries and departments that seem to be harmony are rife with scandals. Hence, Eurobond and fraudulent borrowing (National Treasury), extrajudicial killings and police helicopter acquisition scandals (Interior), overpriced US warplanes (Defence), the Rio Olympics frauds (Sports), failed primary school laptops programme (Education) and others.
Provision of services has become messy since UhuRuto took office. The two have only managed to revive and mainstream mega corruption, negative ethnicity and abortion of the ICC cases.
We can therefore conclude that the Jubilee high command is a burden to Kenyans. It is led by politicians who do not know that leadership is a responsibility to voter and country.
If they objectively compare their scorecard against their 2013 manifesto, they would realise they have failed Kenyans — badly. Then they would spare Kenyans the routine PR they broadcast in Parliament and other public forums.
The writer is Kitutu Masaba MP and ODM national treasurer