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Parliament has come under fire for rejecting the nomination of Dr Monica Juma for the position of Secretary to the Cabinet on seemingly flimsy grounds. Apparently it is a letter she wrote freezing many a ‘mhesh’ from gatecrashing into her office that attracted their wrath.
President Uhuru Kenyatta expressed his dismay and termed the rejection by the ‘MPigs’ a “spurning of a public servant whose performance has consistently delivered...” But did you know UK’s old guy never appointed any woman to his male-dominated Cabinet in his 15-year presidency?
Nyiva Mwendwa (inset) was the first woman cabinet minister after retired President Moi appointed her Minister for Social Services following the 1992 general elections. Jomo too never had a Muslim waziri until Moi appointed Hussein Maalim Mohammed Minister of State in the Office of the President in 1983.
The (dis)honourables who have rejected Dr Juma’s nomination serve a five-year term, but did you know that the first Parliament-that was housed in a mabati structure along Whitehouse Road (now Haile Selassie Avenue but then named after Uganda Railway engineer George Whitehouse) never had term limits.
The six jungu civil servants and two unofficial members in the inaugural National Assembly sat for 13 straights years from August 16, 1907 until its dissolution on April 1, 1920.
It was no April Fool’s Day joke for members who later served in three to four and a half year terms until the five-year term was introduced at independence in 1963.
