Fuel saga: The buck stops with Opiyo Wandayi

Energy CS Opiyo Wandayi. [File, Standard]

When a ship runs aground, maritime law does not ask whether the Captain was on the bridge at the moment of impact. The real question would be: Was he in command? By that logic, Energy Cabinet Secretary (CS) Opiyo Wandayi has some serious explanation to give. Four of his men, Principal Secretary Mohamed Liban, Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority Director General Daniel Kiptoo, Kenya Pipeline Company MD Joe Sang, and Energy Ministry deputy director Joseph Wafula, have been arrested and have resigned over a fuel scandal.

Documents show that the waiver permitting the substandard shipment, one carrying benzene levels dangerous enough to warrant dilution and manganese capable of causing neurological damage, was issued at the direct request of Mr Wandayi's State Department for Petroleum office.

The Trade Ministry's waiver letter was addressed to Wandayi himself. Yet he remains comfortably at his desk at Kawi House. Contrast this with how countries with functioning accountability cultures handle such moments. In 2019, Egypt's transport minister resigned after 25 people were killed and 50 others were injured in a train crash in Cairo.

When Ukraine's energy sector was rocked by a $100 million corruption scandal in November 2025, Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk did not issue reassuring press statements; she resigned immediately.

Political accountability is not contingent on personal involvement; it follows command responsibility.

The DCI office has stated that "resignation from office does not exonerate suspects". That is fine, but the inverse also holds; that staying in office does not insulate a CS from scrutiny. Liban was Wandayi's PS. Kiptoo answered to his ministry's policy direction. The entire chain of command allowed the dangerous fuel to go through his docket. By commission or omission, that implicates the man at the top.

President William Ruto has staked his legacy on fighting corruption. Selectively punishing junior officers while the CS issues reassuring press statements is not accountability. Dr Ruto cannot afford to have sacred cows. Justice, to mean anything, must cut both ways. The buck does not stop at the PS level. It stops at Wandayi's office.