President's 'last supper' with CSs before axe falls

President William Ruto Thursday held a Cabinet meeting at State House that could turn out to be the ‘last supper’ for seven Cabinet secretaries, whose ministries are to be abolished in a looming shakeup.

 The Standard has established that about  seven ministries will be scrapped following the reorganisation which will also see several departments merged and an array of State corporations disbanded.

Multiple sources independently indicated that prior to the meeting, the president held a 40-minute meeting with his deputy Rigathi Gachagua before joining the jittery Cabinet secretaries, some of whose jobs are on the line.

In the new anticipated line-up,  there will be 15 ministries as opposed to the current 22, which will be reorganised as follows: Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and National Treasury.

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Others are Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EAC, Ministry Labour  and Public Service, Ministry of  Affirmative Action, Youth and Gender.

The reorganisation will lead to the creation of Ministry for Water, Forest and Environment, Ministry of Tourism, Culture, Youth and Sports, Ministry of Infrastructure, Lands, Housing, Public works, Roads, Ministry of Economic Planning, MITI, SME, Cooperatives, Delivery Unit, ICT and the Attorney General.

At the same time, 15 principal secretaries will lose their jobs in the shakeup in response to  austerity measures announced by President Ruto to tame the runaway wage bill which has been gobbling up almost all the revenue collected domestically.

During the countrywide protests organised by Generation Z, the president has been under pressure to reduce the size of his Cabinet and scrap some departments.

In a related development, 43 parastatal chiefs will be shown the door when their entities are scrapped.

Details of parastatals to be rendered moribund will become clear when the president makes the announcement in the course of this weekend, sources told The Standard.

Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale confirmed that the National Treasury had been mandated to profile the parastatals which have overlapping mandates and those which had roles which could better be fulfilled by the private sector.

He explained that some of the parastals will be relocated to parent ministries as departments.

“There will be radical changes and President Ruto is committed to reduce the bloated wage bill,” Duale added.

In his communiqué released to the press after the Cabinet meeting, President Ruto said: ‘‘the government must now focus on charting a new future for the country, pointing out that significant changes must be made to align with that new future’’.

On the withdrawn Finance Bill, Ruto said the National Treasury is reorganising the budget to accommodate the new reality which will include substantial cutting down of budgets to “balance between what is to be implemented and what can wait”, and ensuring that key national programmes are not affected.

“Our plan is good and solid and, in the fullness of time, we shall be vindicated,” he said.

The Cabinet was also informed that the security agencies have stabilised the situation and are continuing to monitor the developments, even as the meeting commended security officers, pointing out that they on the whole acted professionally in very difficult circumstances.

“Any officers who may have acted outside the confines of the law will be dealt with in accordance with legal procedures,” the Cabinet dispatch read.

The Cabinet discussed the implementation of the Kenya Urban Improvement Project in the Nairobi Metropolitan Area that includes the upgrade of the 163km Nairobi Commuter Rail.

The Cabinet meeting comes three days after the president promised Generation Z he would implement some of their recommendations.