Reorganise government to save legacy, Orengo tells Uhuru

Senate Minority Leader James Orengo has asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to reorganise the government by dissolving the Cabinet and restructuring the public service in order to save his legacy.

According to the Siaya senator, there are a lot of saboteurs in President Kenyatta’s government who are out to derail his development agenda for the remainder of his final term in office.

He claimed that the current Cabinet, as structured, is reading from different scripts which may hinder the head of State from actualising his Big Four agenda and other matters of national importance.

“In president Uhuru’s Cabinet there seems to be players from different teams which makes his government dysfunctional. That is why he should begin to reorganise and restructure the Cabinet and public service for him to achieve his objectives in the Big Four agenda,” said Mr Orengo.

He was speaking on Sunday afternoon in Gem Kambare where he met football players and officials from various teams in Gem at Kambare Secondary School. He was accompanied by Gem MP Elisha Odhiambo and former legislator Joe Donde.

Looming reshuffle

There has been talk on a looming reshuffle to have those who are not keen on implementing the government's policy shown the door.

The president is also said to be keen on restructuring his administration to accommodate loyal people from his handshake partner Raila Odinga's side.

Mr Orengo said the head of State has less than 24 months and two budgets to straighten his administration.

He pointed out that this can be done just like he has focused on rehabilitation of the Kisumu port and the Jomo Kenyatta International Stadium, projects that are being expedited and are nearing completion.

“I am just giving advice. I am not in government and I am not playing politics, but what I know is for this country to move, the president has to reorganise his government now,” said Mr Orengo.

He also accused the IEBC of being corrupt and lethargic, falling short of accusing the electoral body of colluding with the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party — which is allied to Deputy President William Ruto — to delay the BBI signature verification process.

The Siaya Senator was echoing concerns raised by Minority Whip and Suna East MP Junet Mohammed over the slow pace with which the IEBC is carrying out the verification.

The BBI secretariat had submitted 4.4 million signatures to the electoral body on December 10, 2020 as required by the law while slightly more than 540,000 signatures had been verified by the end of last week.

Mr Orengo pointed out that among the things they fought for was having an integrated election system which could register voters, do biometric voter identification and electronically transmit results and, therefore, was surprised by the slow pace of the signature verification.

“I still maintain that IEBC is a den of corruption. Countries can carry out elections with 30 million voters and within 24 hours, the results are out while our own electoral body is taking more than 20 days to verify signatures which should take maximum a week,” said Mr Orengo.

A million signatures are required for the country to go into a referendum and the IEBC says it needs 40 days to give a confirmation report.

Restructure IEBC

Mr Orengo said it is important to restructure IEBC before things go out of hand.

“I may not be surprised that the IEBC are agents of this new formation called UDA. There is all the evidence that they have a political objective in what they are doing,” said Mr Orengo.

He also used the forum to drum up support for the Building Bridges Initiative, saying it will foster peace in the country.

Mr Orengo said clamour for power should not cloud the bigger picture for the country which to him is making Kenya one of the most developed nations in the world through industrialisation.

“The country should be weary of those with constant desire to acquire political power. Countries like Korea had the same leaders telling us about wheelbarrows, but they decided to change the status of their country and are doing good through democratisation and industrialisation,” said Mr Orengo.

The Gem MP said the BBI is a well-thought-out document that can save the country from anarchy.

He asked the DP not to run away from the problems and failures in the Jubilee administration.

“Ruto is the deputy president of this country, elected together with the President. If the country has failed, it is not Uhuru who has failed, it is both of you and you cannot point fingers at the head of State,” said Mr Odhiambo.

He challenged the DP to declare his source of wealth for the last 10 years.

Mr Orengo called for sports to be given more attention in order to boost talent nurturing across the country.

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