New-look Cabinet fails on gender, regional balance, says Musalia Mudavadi

The Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi has accused President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto of forming a government that favours a section of Kenyans while disadvantaging others.

Mudavadi, a former Deputy Prime Minister in the Grand Coalition Government, said that the new-look Cabinet as announced by President Kenyatta Tuesday night does not represent the face of Kenya and is not all inclusive.

“The people of Kenya expected a breath of fresh air in a reconstituted Cabinet. A reconstituted Cabinet would have meant all the people of Kenya are made to feel part of government,” said Mudavadi.

He said that what the President did was just to substitute players but the team remains the same.

According o the ANC leader, “the opportunity for an inclusive Executive was once again missed. The appointments score high on the exclusivity test.”

He pointed out that women were excluded from the Cabinet as the new appointments did not meet the one-third gender requirement.

“The Cabinet does not meet conditional quotas for regional and gender balance. In fact, the women of Kenya have lost big; the one-third gender constitutional requirement has been broken. The original six women have been reduced to five in a Cabinet of twenty-one,” he said.

“Jubilee is also involved in dangerous and expensive experiments in governance. It is a rewind to the crisis Cabinet former President Moi created under the Dream Team experiment.”

Mudavadi says that the Jubilee administration has just copied the same without the galaxy of the Dream Team.

“Instead of a lean Executive, Jubilee has now a bloated one with ministries re-named departments and deceptively put under Principals Secretaries. Then, individuals shared portfolios. Most of these are functions that should have been devolved to counties. It should have pruned itself of these functions that have been baptised departments.”

Mudavadi says that the government is struggling to find money to fund its operations and has been unable to fund the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to carry out its constitutional duties of registering voters.

“The irony is that the same government manufactures by-elections which require money by poaching elected MPs. In which case, the government has shot itself in the foot: it will have no reason to argue there is no money to fund a referendum.”

He now wants Parliament to keenly scrutinize the nominees by focusing on their integrity and qualifications to hold a docket.

“The President’s appointments must be interrogated on whether they meet the requirements of section 130 of the constitution which require that the composition of the national Executive (Cabinet) ‘SHALL reflect the regional and ethnic diversity of the people of Kenya’,” he added.

On Tuesday, President Kenyatta made a major Cabinet reshuffle in what he termed as re-organization of the government to ensure effective and efficient service delivery.

In the new-look Cabinet, several Cabinet Secretaries have been sent home and new-comers brought on board as well as the number of Ministries increased from the current 19 to 20.

Former Laikipia East Member of Parliament Mwangi Kiunjuri has been nominated the CS for Devolution and Planning taking over from Ms Anne Waiguru who resigned last weekend citing health concerns.