President reads riot act to PSs, freezes new projects

President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses all government accounting officers including Principal Secretaries, Parastatal Heads, Vice Chancellors of Public Universities and Chairmen of State Corporations at KICC, Nairobi.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has reiterated commitment to rid his administration of corruption that threatens to sink his administration.

With exactly four years to the end of his last term and perhaps aware that time is lapsing, the President yesterday put on notice Principal Secretaries, heads of parastatals and chairpersons of parastatal boards, warning them that they will be held personally responsible for the failure of government projects under their dockets.

“As government officers, Kenyans expect you to be guardians of public resources and I assure you the war on corruption will go on. Those involved will pay dearly, but those who act within the law should have nothing to fear,” said Kenyatta.

Stopping wastage

The President seems to have narrowed down on the fight against graft and the implementation of the Big Four Agenda. These two, he believes, will give him a favourable footing among Kenyans as he exits the scene in 2022.

The President also directed a freeze on new government projects to allow implementation of Big Four Agenda projects. “There will be no new projects that will be embarked until you complete those that are ongoing,” said the President. Only the Big Four Agenda projects will be exempt from the freeze but even then there must be written authorisation from the National Treasury.

“Even if new projects are aligned to the Big Four, they cannot be started without express authority from CS or PS of the National Treasury,” said Kenyatta.

The President explained that the directive is aimed at stopping wastage of resources and the culture of government agencies abandoning incomplete projects and jumping onto others.

But Jubilee critic David Ndii said the freeze had been borne out of the fact that government is broke, and is unable to sustain operations and run new development projects.

“The books are in the red, the President’s directive is face-saving attempts. Last week Zambia also gave similar directives following hot on the heels of Ethiopia, and Pakistan. Sri Lanka is worse...it is being auctioned. All this is because of the appetite for Chinese that has come to haunt them,” said Ndii. In the new directive, all government accounting officers including Principal Secretaries, parastatal heads, vice chancellors of public universities and chairmen of corporations will only concentrate on ongoing project.

Mega projects have been a gift and a curse to the Jubilee administration, with a number of them linked to graft through procurement irregularities that has seen the taxpayer lose billions of shillings.

At the same time, the government plans to launch an internet portal where all procurement, tenders and contracts will be advertised to boost transparency and stem theft.

Coupled with the formation of anti-graft task force and the directive to have all procurement officers undergo fresh vetting, the President is seen to be taking his assault on corruption a notch higher.

Prior to sending home the officers, Kenyatta in June said all senior government officers including himself will undergo a lifestyle audit.

It is not clear if the directives are being implemented or the role have been left to a multi-agency team against graft that the President formed and has covertly been running its operations.

Multi-Agency Task Team that brings together nine government agencies and headed by Attorney General Paul Kihara has in the last one and a half months been collecting information covertly and is credited to have helped secure the recent prosecutions.  

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