There are a few things in the background. One of them, of course, is
corruption. The President finds himself surrounded by a web of corruption in
that if he wants to procure a pen, the system around him immediately wants to
find a way of being corrupt.
Secondly, there is the tradition and culture of civil service. If you ever
approached a civil servant and told the civil servant to do something in a new
way, you are likely to face resistance because the civil service is not
innovative. It has been there for a long time.
The budgeting process, for example, is the same. If an office buys milk and
flowers every morning, they will buy them still even if the boss is there or
not. Those are the issues that President Uhuru Kenyatta is facing. There is the
side of corruption and there is the resistance to change.
Having understood that, the question that must be asked is, why Uhuru chose
the Cabinet he picked. Appointment of the Cabinet is a kind of political
settlement. It is like he has a coalition government where if he touches
any CS or PS while fighting corruption, the question would become why has he
picked on our own.
The psychology of Kenyans and the political situation have put the President
in a tight corner. Any move he makes towards the Cabinet is a political settlement.
It is almost as if this Cabinet was hired for him. Any time he wants to touch
them, which we have seen even in the fight against corruption, he has political
considerations to make. The President is handicapped.
Let us remember that when he was choosing this Cabinet he had to make both
political and tribal considerations. The senior officers in government were
given jobs based on political settlement. These are political appointees.
The proof of this is that every time someone is arrested, like we saw during
the DCJ Mwilu’s arrest, it became a Nasa issue. When other people are arrested,
it becomes we are targeting Ruto’s side. These are creatures of a political
settlement, so if I was picked politically then you have to fire me
politically.
The political analyst spoke to the Star
