Friday’s mini-reshuffle was an anti-climax in many ways. If anything, it caused more cynicism that President Uhuru Kenyatta and his minders were less keen to address pressing issues of integrity and sound governance dogging his government.
Besides the co-opting of renowned medical scholar, the no-nonsense chairman of the Kenya National Examination Council George Magoha, what the president did easily passes as a game of musical chairs.
Moving Amina Mohamed- whose performance at the Education docket was lackluster- to Sports and Culture can best be described as a miss affair.
In the wake of revelations of multi-billion kickback scandals, a slagging economy - predicted to grow at 6 per cent in 2019- it would have been quite natural to see a real shake up there.
The inefficiency, the wastage and corruption in the public sector that is hobbling the country’s forward progress needed more than half-hearted measures.
Kenyans wanted a total purge in the Cabinet.
By any measure, a Cabinet defines and frames the agenda of a president. When he picked his second term Cabinet last year, this newspaper cautioned that the egregious mix-and-match would severely imperil the president’s legacy. Furthermore, despite our reservations on some of the nominees, we knew a Legislature at the beck and call of the Executive would merely clear and forward the names to the president for appointment.
Of course, we are aware that was forced on the president by prevailing circumstances following the bitterly fought elections of 2017. Nonetheless, we had hoped that the much-acclaimed March 9, 2018 handshake with his bitter rival Raila Odinga would embolden him to clean up government and put not just competent men and women in these positions, but also those with integrity and the energy to perform.
Alas, that hasn’t happened and time is running out to fix the economy, address the high unemployment, clean up government, cure corruption and cement the drive for a peaceful, progressive and united country.
He could have used Friday’s reshuffle to just achieve that.
No doubt, President Kenyatta must rue the missed chances in his first term. Then, in spite of the goodwill and legitimacy in his Cabinet pickings, things seemingly went haywire with five ministers stepping aside over claims of mega corruption at the NYS, Kenya Pipeline, Ministry of Land and at the Department of Agriculture. His government never recovered from that tag.
Mr Kenyatta could apportion part of the blame on MPs for sloppy vetting: That the MPs failed to establish the suitability of the nominees by matching skill and fit and critically examining their character; or that partisan politics carried the day. That is neither here nor there.
The buck stops with him. And only he could do the right thing.
How he goes about curing what afflicts his administration is entirely up to him, but clearly, time is running out not to want to act decisively.
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