Parastatal appointments: Who said political rejects cannot be appointed to boards?

I have been following comments on the government’s recent board appointments and am struck by the twists and intrigues that shade most of the negative commentators. This has persuaded me to also contribute my views, obviously with benefits from what I have heard others say.

The gist of arguments by most of those opposed to the appointments lies on what is being described as recycling of political rejects, whatever that means. Perhaps I should start by declaring that I support the appointments even though the only name I recognize is that of Fish, Dr. Stephen Njiru, and he deserves much more than that, even his brother Ken!  Besides the issue of political rejects there are also some murmurs about exclusion of the youth. Kenyans have a habit of looking at people’s faces to estimate their ages instead of asking for their IDs or passports. I did not see ages shown on the lists appearing in the Gazette so am really at a loss as to how conclusions have been drawn that the youth have been largely excluded.

My comments will dwell mainly on two issues: political rejects, as they have been labelled, and inclusion of the youth, or lack of it. First let me point out, and not out of ignorance that there is an undisputable correlation between experience and performance. 

Often we hear the public demanding professionalization of public service. The private sector where it thrives does so because of hiring people with experience. Companies with significant investments tend to often have boards that reflect lengthy experience. Even when the ownership of the company is youth there is always that tendency to bring on board people with experience.

 Interestingly around the same time of these appointments and comments, a survey released by Infotrack has revealed that governors with prior public service experience performed better. Indeed, most senior positions advertised by the Public Service Commission (PSC) require experience as a common factor. These are public entities, and in Kenya where every move is scrutinized from below, above sideways and right through, accountability cannot be promised by appointing people who are not up to the task.

 It is probably necessary at this point to highlight that in policy and strategic guidance, technical knowhow on the intricacies of the companies’ is not critical. Cumulative knowledge and experience have a habit of entitling those who possess them the right to gut feeling. That is why you can have an accountant heading a medical institution. He or she is not expected to perform surgery. While the youth definitely require exposure, there are numerous other opportunities. In any case, whenever youthful people demonstrate that they have what it takes, I am sure; they will always be placed in those positions. The likes of Mugo Kebati belonged to that age bracket when they started heading big corporate organisations. Boards are serious institutional structures, not centres for management traineeship.

Regarding the tag of political rejects I am of the opinion that losers in democratic contests should not be called losers. In fact one cannot refer to them as such without injuring the rights of those who voted for such people.  Many of them had tens of thousands of votes to their credit with some losing with small margins. Fathom a situation where we call Right Honourable Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka political rejects, after all they too lost. Can we dare? Let us also bear in mind that simply because someone is well known or comes from a seemingly privileged background does not disqualify him or her from consideration for appointment. Chances are that they became well known because of their success and hard work, attributes that make them attractive to serve in our statutory boards.  This brings to mind some of the people former president Kibaki had in his national advisory council, the likes of Linda Chalker, Mak’Atiani...

Finally for whatever it is worth, Hon Oburu Odinga dismissed the appointments as being to bodies that only meet four times in a year, so what is the big deal.