President Uhuru extends George Opondo Ooko's term at KNH

George Opondo Ooko served as KNH Board chairperson between April 2020 and May 2022 before the reappointment. [File, Standard]

President Uhuru Kenyatta has appointed George Opondo Ooko as the chairperson of the Kenyatta National Hospital Board for another three-year term.

The president said in a gazette notice that Ooko’s renewed term takes effect from Friday, May 27.

“In exercise of the powers conferred by section 6(1)(a) of the State Corporations Act and section 2(2)(a) of the Kenyatta National Hospital Board Order, I, Uhuru Kenyatta, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, re-appoint George Opondo Ooko to be the Chairperson of the Kenyatta National Hospital Board, for a period of three years, with effect from the 27th May, 2022,” said Kenyatta in Gazette Notice Number 6019.

Ooko’s previous term in office ran between April 21, 2020 and May 2, 2022.

The president, at the time, picked Ooko for the top job after revoking the appointment of former Rarieda Member of Parliament Nicholas Gumbo.

George Opondo Ooko previously served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA).

He also served as the CEO of the Coffee Development Fund between 2007 and 2011. Prior to that, he had stints at NIC Bank, which has since merged with Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), and Barclays Bank (now operating in Kenya as Absa).

“With a great strategic plan, we intend to advance KNH as a referral and specialisation hospital, and invest in making sure that we are progressing,” he said in 2021.

Ooko says his background is finance and management.

“I’ve had a long experience in public finance. For instance, I took up the role of CEO in the Commission of Revenue Allocation. Here, I dealt mainly with the division of money between the national and county governments,” Ooko told KNH’s newsletter published in 2021.

Ooko further revealed that he started working in the mid-1980s. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from the University of Nairobi, and a Master of Business Administration Degree from the same institution.

Other appointments

In the May 27, 2022 Kenya Gazette, President Kenyatta also appointed Titus Ibui to be the chairperson of the LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority Board, for a period of two years, with effect from May 27, 2022.

The president also reappointed Engineer Joshua Toro to be the chairperson of the National Irrigation Authority Board for a period of three years, with effect from May 27, 2022.