• The former Treasury CS will end the year as a jobless man who once held a key docket in the government.
• Elgeyo Marakwet residents said during the submissions that the cancellation of Kimwarer dam was suspicious and that it was singled out from several projects in the country.
Image: Enos Teche
While some people will look back at 2019 as a year they achieved milestones, one man may be flashing back and wondering where it all went wrong.
That man is Henry Rotich, the former Treasury CS.
After steadily rising up the ladder of his career, a series of missteps accumulated to bring him to a mighty fall.
THE BEGINNING
Rotich was born in 1969 in Kimwarer, Elgeyo Marakwet county.
He made his way through school and landed himself a spot in the prestigious Harvard University, which is an Ivy League institution.
The Ivy League is a group of long-established universities in the eastern US, having high academic and social prestige. Other members include Yale, Princeton, and Columbia universities.
Rotich holds a Master's degree in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University.
He also holds a Master's degree in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics and Sociology from the University of Nairobi.
Rotich is a man who has held several positions.
He has served on the KCB, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and Telkom Kenya boards.
While he was the Treasury CS, he represented the government, which has several shares, on the Kenya Commercial Bank board.
He also sat on the
Before his appointment as the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Rotich was the Head of Macroeconomics at the Treasury up to 2006 and was involved in the formulation of macroeconomic policies.
During his first term as Treasury CS, Rotich launched the first Treasury bond to be offered exclusively through the mobile phone in a bid to stimulate public participation in the capital market.
During his first term, the country secured a $1.5 billion (Sh150 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund in 2016.
The loan was one of the biggest the IMF had granted on the continent.
Rotich was among the six CSs retained by President Uhuru Kenyatta during his second term in office after winning the 2017 General Election.
TROUBLE STARTS
Problems started to emerge for Rotich in 2018 after a joint report by two parliamentary committees submitted a report before Parliament calling for Rotich and his fellow EAC CS Adan Mohammed to be investigated over the handling of sugar imports.
However, escaped retribution after Parliament rejected the sugar probe report by the joint committee on the basis that the team did not conclusively interrogate critical issues raised.
This, was however, not the end of his troubles after Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji in 2019 revealed that Sh21 billion had been lost in the Kimwarer and Arror dams project.
In March, Deputy President William Ruto defended Rotich, saying that amount was not lost.
Ruto said the figures reported to have been stolen were misleading.
"You' have heard that the government has lost about Sh21 billion which is a flat lie! The money in question is about Sh7 billion, and for every coin that has been paid, we have a bank guarantee," he said.
CRUMBLING DOWN
However, the Kimwarer and Arror ghost would not stop haunting Rotich.
In July, the DPP ordered the arrest of Rotich, Treasury PS Kamau Thugge, and other senior government officials over the Kimwarer and Arror dams scandal.
Haji said the senior government officials flouted procurement rules and committed illegalities in the Arror and Kimwarer dams tender.
A total of 28 officials and entities were charged.
Rotich and Thugge were granted Sh15 million bail each with an option of Sh50 million bond.
In September, the President cancelled the Kimwarer dam project after receiving recommendations from a technical committee comprising quantity surveyor Julius Matu, and engineers Benjamin Mwangi and John Muiruri.
The committee told the President the Sh22.2 billion Kimwarer dam was overpriced and was neither technically nor financially viable.
The President allowed Arror dam to continue after its design was scaled down from 96 metres to 60 metres.
"The optimised dam will be technically viable since it will only require about 250 acres and cost Sh15.4 billion with power and Sh13.1 billion without power. The dam was previously estimated to cost Sh28.3 billion," State House spokesperson Kanze Dena said in a statement.
The cancellation of Kimwarer dam caused an uproar from local residents, led by Elgeyo Marakwet Kipchumba Murkomen. Murkomen protested the move and filed a petition before the senate on behalf of the residents.
The Senate in November asked the government not to implement the recommendation on the cancellation of the project as they continue with their findings.
The residents said during the submissions that the cancellation of Kimwarer dam was suspicious and that it was singled out from several projects in the country.
Following his arrest, Rotich was replaced by the Labour CS Ukur Yatani as the acting National Treasury CS.
And just like that, a career spanning decades was crushed.
After the appointment, Yatani said that he was ready to help the President achieve his dreams which he had towards the nation.
“My appointment comes at a time when there are issues that deal with governors. I will do my level best to ensure that there is discipline at all levels,” Yatani said.
In September, the Treasury announced the austerity measures as a way of reducing government's spending.
It cut down on delegations accompanying ministers and PSs on foreign trips and advertising by the national and county governments.
The cuts also affected the Judiciary, Parliament, independent offices and commissions to free more money for development, currently allocated less than Sh700 billion of the Sh3 trillion budget.
Rotich, Thugge and the rest of the 28 people charged with them are still having pending cases in court.
Rotich closes the year crestfallen without a plum job and a court case hanging over his head.