President Uhuru Kenyatta must reject MPs’ bid to politicise Cabinet

Kenya: Some MPs want the Constitution amended to ensure all Cabinet secretaries are elected MPs. This would all be very well if their motive was altruistic. However, the reasons they give for their proposal are self-serving.

First, they claim that Cabinet secretaries, by virtue of not being MPs, cannot grasp important national issues. This notwithstanding that some members of the Cabinet are well-read former captains of industry.

Secondly, they allege that Cabinet secretaries draw huge salaries yet do not visit villages to understand what affects the common man. This argument is rather backward. Ministries have departments and staff employed to take up such chores, and Cabinet secretaries are not politicians in a popularity contest.

It is more than likely that they hanker for the time when being appointed to the Cabinet was a political affair that could be milked for all it is worth, and used by the Head of State to reward supporters and punish those that did not vote for him.

Could it be that they are playing to a much more powerful political choir with a conductor weaving the moves behind the curtain? If such an amendment became law, the President and his deputy would be able to use Cabinet appointments for pork barrel politics to shore up political support.

And where would it stop? It could also be a clever move to neuter a resurgent Opposition by allowing the President to appoint politicians to Cabinet to assuage demands for ethnic arithmetic in top appointments between the two main parties in the Jubilee Coalition.

These are petty issues that highlight our legislators’ preoccupation with fatuous matters. Leaders must tackle issues related to education, the biting drought, insecurity and provision of other basic services.

The drafters of the Constitution took note of the conflict of interests in one doubling up as an MP and a Cabinet Secretary, hence the separation of the two. And there is no proof that Cabinet Secretaries who are politicians would deliver better the Jubilee manifesto.

It is more likely that they will pander to the whims of the appointing authorities at the expense of serving Kenyans.

Some leaders may be unhappy that they cannot blackmail Cabinet secretaries into giving them contracts or sanctioning underhand deals. The carte blanche to dispense favours is no longer theirs for the taking. It would have made sense for the legislators to point out the shortcomings surrounding Cabinet Secretaries’ appointments and deployment.

Many of the Cabinet secretaries were given portfolios beyond their grasp and should be replaced.

But politicising the Cabinet will not cure the problem facing the Jubilee administration.

Its approach to appointments based on the ethnic make-up of its two main political parties has only served to entrench national divisions rather than heal them. It will only make things worse.