Ruto's knack for shaping careers and breaking them in a flash

President William joins traditional dancers for a jig during the ofiicial opening of Ngeria Technical Training Institute in Kapseret, Uasin Gishu County on Jan 10, 2025. [PCS]

In the last two years, President William Ruto has plucked scores of professionals from obscurity, thrust them into the national limelight, and then cast them out in the cold after they failed to live up to his expectations.

The pace at which President Ruto has been changing his Cabinet and Cabinet-level appointments since he took office in 2022 has made and broken the careers of many who were not in the public glare, only to be forced to retreat into their private lives after serving their brief stint under Ruto’s administration.

The biggest blow to the professionals serving under President Ruto came on July 11, last year, when the Head of State dissolved his Cabinet, saying “it could have done better in helping him lead the country” with respect to the widespread protests by Gen Z.

The President, who claimed he acted after an extensive appraisal of the Cabinet’s performance, was under intense pressure from a section of Kenyans who argued that some appointees had failed to meet the public’s expectations.

Some of the Cabinet Secretaries shown the door included Njuguna Ndung’u (Treasury and Finance), Zachariah Njeru (Water, Sanitation and Irrigation), Penina Malonza (East African Community, the ASALs and Regional Development), Ezekiel Machogu (Education), and Susan Nakhumicha (Health).

Others who were fired following outrage by Gen Z included politicians Aisha Jumwa (Gender, Arts and Heritage), Moses Kuria (Public Service, Housing and Urban Development), Mithika Linturi (Agriculture and Livestock Development), and Simon Chelugui (Cooperatives and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises).

The political class who served in Ruto’s Cabinet had either been picked for their political influence or to please the regions from which they hailed, but their dismissal was interpreted by some as a political blow to their ambitions, as their rivals would use their removal to de-campaign them.

When dismissing the Cabinet, Ruto announced that his decision would pave the way for the formation of a “broad-based Government”, adding that he was keen on the implementation of radical programmes to tackle corruption, debt, domestic resources, jobs, and wastage in government.

The frustrations of the sacked CSs were summed up by Nakhumicha, who expressed her frustrations on X a few months after the rout of the Cabinet.

Deputy President

“You sleep as a CS, and when you wake up, you are not one. You sleep as a Deputy President and wake up, you are not one. We leave everything to God. Bishop, pray for me. It is not easy, having been a minister, and then suddenly, you are just Nakhumicha. You know my name is unique; when you mention it, many associate it with the Health CS. Pray for me,” she said.

Prior to the Cabinet dissolution, the President had also expressed his frustrations, claiming he was to blame for the mess in the country, as he had placed his trust and hope in the wrong people, who in turn contributed to the aggression by Kenyans.

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“I’m to blame because I trusted the wrong people; there has also been a major problem in the way we communicate with our people, and this has allowed our critics to spread the wrong propaganda and misinformation to our people,” the President had said, referring to the issue of the controversial Land Tax Bill, which many Kenyans believed was contained in the impugned Finance Bill.
On August 1, last year, the President scolded his Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries, who he said had scant knowledge about the dockets they held.

Ruto, who spoke during the signing of performance contracts at State House, said some of the CSs and PSs were clueless about what was happening in their respective departments and ministries.

‘‘I call many PSs and ask them what is going on, and they have no clue. That is the job that you have; you are not a messenger, you are not a security person, you are not a photographer, you are not a watchman,” he said.

“You are the PS or the minister, and you don’t have information — how do you run a ministry, a department, or a parastatal if you have no information? That is the highest level of incompetence.”

Ruto said it is the PSs and CSs who are supposed to advise him, yet he seemed to understand more about what was happening in their dockets than they did. He wondered how they could advise him if they were clueless about the information they were supposed to have and challenged them to embrace a culture of reading to familiarise themselves with what was going on.

In his recent reshuffle on December 19, he dropped two Cabinet Secretaries, including Agriculture CS Andrew Karanja and his ICT counterpart Margaret Nyambura, after they served only four months. He replaced them with Mutahi Kagwe and William Kabogo, respectively.

After dropping them from the Cabinet, Ruto gave them a soft landing and nominated them as ambassadors.

Karanja was appointed as the country’s nominee for ambassador to Brazil, while Nyambura was picked to represent Ghana. She has since rejected the appointment, citing personal reasons.

During his vetting by the Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations Committee of the National Assembly, Karanja’s tenure at the Agriculture docket became part of the agenda, potentially shaping the rest of his future career.

Prestigious docket

The parliamentary committee vetting the appointments on Friday interrogated him to understand why he was being moved from the prestigious docket in the Cabinet and whether that signified a demotion.

“Your failure to communicate the government’s position on vaccination might have cost you your job,” observed Nelson Koech, chairperson of the committee.

In response, Karanja acknowledged shortcomings in communication during his tenure, noting that clear messaging is a priority for Ruto’s administration

“Communication is a challenge that affects more than one State department. The President has emphasised the need to improve in this area. With today’s many communication channels, messages can be distorted. We were surprised by some narratives about vaccination, especially on social media,” he said.

On Friday, the Public Service Commission shortlisted 109 candidates for the position of Principal Secretaries, which could signal a looming purge in Ruto’s administration.