• To be honest, they strike me as people with politically transmitted wealth
The fact that President William Ruto's Hustler Cabinet is stuffed with the obscenely wealthy did not impress me much.
That they took the opportunity of being vetted by Parliament to brag about their wealth and tell mostly fairytales about how they acquired it, only went to prove that they think they are smarter than the average Kenyan.
To be honest, people with politically transmitted wealth, which in my book are the most wealthy Kenyan public figures, have never impressed me.
Hardly any of them were wealthy before they, or in one or two cases, their parents, entered public life.
They ran no blue chip businesses and most never showed an ounce of entrepreneurial smarts. If they had, they might have stuck to building their fortunes in the world of business instead of embracing public life to protect their amassed riches.
Many have been in public service for 30 years or so, and it's easy enough to work out what they earned from salaries.
Dig a little deeper with some of them and you'll figure out where and how the ridiculous fortunes came to be, especially as many never so much as ran a roadside tea kiosk.
Of course since Chapter 6 of the Constitution, which deals with leadership and integrity of all public officers, is truly a paper tiger, concerns about where the wealth really came from will be ignored.
Not that they give a damn about impressing me or any other Kenyans, but if they wanted to, here are some things they could do.
First of all, and this is so unlikely to happen it could be labelled a fantasy, they could commit to making an honest annual public wealth declaration of personal or private financial or business interests that they and their immediate families or business partners may have.
This would mean that their wealth could be tracked every year that they hold public office. This way, anyone who had an interest could see if they had made money, other than salaries and allowances, from being a member of the Cabinet.
If they or their families were found to have unduly benefited from their posts, then they would face sanctions, such as having their assets seized until they could be sensibly explained.
If they did this, they might even convince the President and Deputy President to do the same, and the President could then exert his not inconsiderable influence on elected officials to do the same. That would be pretty impressive, for starters.
The second unlikely thing the hustler Cabinet could do is to show how much they are in it purely for the public service.
They could do this by saying that as they are several times richer than the average working Kenyan, they will not be taking a cent in salaries or allowances and donate these monies to the Hustler Fund or back to the Treasury, where they could be used to improve the lives of poor Kenyans.
After all, we, the taxpayers, are already paying for their GK cars, motorcades, home and personal security.
Here in SA, they have a ministerial handbook that provides a guide for benefits, tools of trade and allowances to which ministers, deputy ministers, premiers (like governors in Kenya) and members of the Executive Council (like the County Executive Committee) are entitled.
Recently, it emerged that President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is up for re-election in the ANC this December, had made changes to the handbook, which effectively meant that the taxpayer had to pay for all the electricity and water bills for ministers and their deputies at official residences.
There was public outcry and the presidency was forced to pedal back the changes with an announcement that there would be a review of the ministerial guidelines and that from now on, these matters would be handled by a neutral structure.
This kind of thing would probably never happen in the land of 'Mta Do'? But we can live in hope.