Cabinet veterans who have mastered art of survival in political jungle

Surviving one presidential term as an appointed executive is hard enough. But being a veteran of three presidential terms, under two different presidents is an achievement.

And, in fact, the courts have held that cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries have to be vetted afresh before being re-appointed to cabinet, further proof of how difficult it is to survive.

However, a handful of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s senior officials in the executive, led by Interior Principal Secretary, Dr Karanja Kibicho and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua, find themselves in the category of survivors who have held their executive positions since former President Mwai Kibaki’s administration and continue to wield immense power.

Dr Kibicho was appointed by former President Kibaki in June 2010. Plucked from the lecture halls of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, he was appointed a permanent secretary for industrialisation in the grand coalition government. He remained PS until 2013 when the new President, perhaps looking for continuity in government, tapped him for the same position that has been renamed principal secretary.

For Dr Kinyua, his survival in the top echelons of the executive now stands at almost two decades. He was appointed as a permanent secretary as President Kibaki’s presidency was taking off in 2002. Before President Kenyatta took over, Dr Kinyua mostly served at the National Treasury building either as PS Finance or PS National Planning except for one year between July 2003 and July 2004 when he was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture still as PS. He was the PS for Finance while the minister was Mr Kenyatta during the grand coalition government.

Among the cabinet secretaries, there are Tourism CS Najib Balala and Eugene Wamalwa. For Mr Balala, his election to parliament in the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) wave saw him appointed minister Gender, Sports and Culture. As the fights in Narc escalated, and with President Kibaki trying to restore order in the cabinet, he was moved to National Heritage in the Office of the President in 2004 before being sacked as President Kibaki purged those who had campaigned against the draft constitution in the 2005 referendum. However, after the 2007 post-election violence, Mr Balala returned to the cabinet.

Mr Wamalwa was the Minister of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs taking over from the late Mutula Kilonzo who had been shifted to the Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan Development over his stand on the International Criminal Court’s involvement in the Kenyan post-election violence cases.

In the list of technocrats who were carried over from the Kibaki era are Prof Micheni Ntiba and Esther Koimett. Prof Ntiba was appointed as permanent secretary in April 2008 and mostly held the fisheries docket in both the Kibaki and Kenyatta administrations before he was recently appointed a Chief Administrative Secretary at the State Law Office where he remains.

Ms Koimett is a long-serving Investment Secretary at the National Treasury, a position she held uninterrupted for close to 14 years before President Kenyatta appointed her principal secretary, first in the State Department of Transport and then to the State Department of Broadcasting and Telecommunications where she remains.

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