He who controls the Treasury purse controls the future too

When Kenya’s top leadership assembled in Gatanga, Murang’a County, for the funeral of the mother of former area MP Peter Kenneth on Thursday, Raila Odinga made a highly unusual request. Addressing himself to President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was present, the ODM leader said that the bereaved politician merited a State job. He recalled how well he and Mr Kenneth had worked together during the Mwai Kibaki administration, when Mr Kenneth was assistant minister for Planning, a department of the Treasury.

The timing of Raila’s odd request was interesting. It didn’t escape notice that it came at a time when there is a vacancy in one of the most esteemed offices of State following the exit from the Treasury of former CS Henry Rotich after he was charged in court with corruption. Though soft-spoken Labour CS Ukur Yattani was quickly named acting Treasury CS, it would not be the norm to have the critical position remain without a substantive occupant for long. Jubilee insiders privately cautioned against reading too much from Raila’s remark. They didn’t rule out Kenneth joining government at some level or other, but they are also very much alive to the fact that a prominent personality from Central Kenya stepping into the shoes of Rotich so soon after his departure would seriously fray nerves inside the feuding Jubilee coalition.

Ahead of Mr Yattani’s surprise appointment, keen observers thought they detected an interesting power play at work, specifically in the context of Jubilee factional intrigues. Among the names being mentioned in the media as frontrunners to replace Rotich was that of Enterprise Development CS Adan Mohamed. Indeed, as a former Barclays Bank Kenya CEO, he is one of the handful of people in the Cabinet with a solid background in finance. Still, people affiliated to Uhuru’s wing hinted Mohamed’s name was being planted by the rival Jubilee faction of DP William Ruto, to which the CS is said to be linked. It may be recalled that when Interior CS Fred Matiang’i launched a crackdown last year on imported contraband and contaminated sugar, Mohamed saw the Trade portfolio suddenly and without explanation taken away from his docket and transferred to CS Peter Munya’s. Those in the know are quite categorical that there was never any intention of appointing the ex-banker to become Rotich’s replacement.

The person most widely speculated as a likely nominee to the substantive Treasury CS docket is Esther Koimett, the Transport CS. She is not new to the Treasury, having worked there for many years as Investment Secretary before being promoted to PS Transport. An additional bonus is that she hails from Elgeyo Marakwet County, same as Rotich. Koimett is seen as a scrupulously apolitical professional, somebody who is not beholden to either of the warring herds in the Jubilee kraal. However, there are the political operatives who argue that for so important a docket like the Treasury, Uhuru may not want to settle for anything less other than a player whose loyalty to him is direct and unequivocal. Whichever the case, the picture will become clearer when – and if – a widely anticipated Cabinet reshuffle is done.

Come to think of it, the President may well find it is safer to keep Yattani in the seat for a while longer than would have been anticipated. Why? By having him in place, it postpones the inevitable flare-up of open factional hostilities until such a time as the Uhuru side is ready. No doubt, the penultimate showdown is unavoidable in due course. My bet is that this will come towards March next year, when by law Jubilee elections must be held. The Ruto faction will discover that Uhuru has no intention of letting go of Jubilee, and they will be left with no choice but to walk away.

Dominic Grieve, a former UK attorney-general, dismisses Boris Johnson, the new British PM, as a charlatan. Others who know him speak of worse attributes behind the showman persona. Boris (as everybody calls him) has set himself the goal of negotiating a Brexit deal with the EU before October 31, three months away. That is impossible. Britain should just brace herself for a no-deal Brexit, the worst case scenario. The PM blithely waves away the complex Brexit imponderables like the so-called Irish “backstop”. That is being naive.

Boris has stuffed his new cabinet with extreme right-wingers who are as blinkered as himself.

Yet his Conservative party’s majority in Parliament is a wafer-thin count of only two or three MPs. Once Brexit hits a wall and Britain realises the mouthy Boris has led them into a cul-de-sac, the government will surely fall. Expect an election sometime in the very near future.

The Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn will easily win it unless the Conservatives wake up soon and oust Boris. They should get a less unbalanced leader than this guy.