The Mountain Before UhuRuto

The economy has just survived an election fever and everything is slowly regaining momentum to surge forward.

It is a very blissful scenario in almost all sectors of the economy especially the financial side.

With a new government in place, there are certain decisions that have to be made in terms of appointments. A new cabinet has to be formulated and this entails appointing persons to run government affairs, envoys must be send to foreign stations to represent the nation internationally and directors for various parastatals and government agencies need to be selected. All these persons will form a team that will make policies and implement them so as to drive the country.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has the task of ensuring that he has a good government that meets its targets and objectives.

However, on the other hand, he has the political obligations of rewarding his close allies.

On another scale, he wants to play safe by keeping a close battalion of his confidants, not forgetting the constitutional order that requires every assembly constituted by the constitution to have no more than 2/3 of either gender.

His Excellency the president and his deputy, Hon. Ruto find themselves in a fix. They want a lean cabinet but at the same time one that is legally constituted.

On the other hand, they also want to reward their buddies but keep their confidants close to them; what option do they have?

This is a hurdle of unprecedented magnitudes because citing all those angles he does not forget the importance of having persons who will enable him secure a second term simply because of their ethics, professionalism and proper adherence to laws. Well there is no way all these attributes can be found in a single individual.

People might have one or two at most three of all the attributes being searched for by the president and yet the size they intend to manage is quite small.

Clearly, the president has no clear cut options but to play a safe juggle and ensure that he does not touch the political live wire by not considering diversity in ethnicity of the appointments.

That is what might engineer his efforts to foster cohesion and harmony within communities. He must be seen to play fair when appointing people to various offices because this is not only expected by Kenyans but demanded by the constitution.

Well, the president is the custodian of the law as far as his duties are concerned.

Clearly looking at the state of affairs in president Uhuru and deputy president Ruto’s hands, they have a difficult case.

They ought to be very careful in their moves over the next few days lest they start fumbling and facing challenges from commissions and civil society that are ready to file suits anytime of any day.

This situation calls for wise thinking, probably even a visit to religious leaders and special advisers to seek word on how to carry out affairs.

They can even go further to approach the former presidents just to be sure of the possible outcome of their engagements.

Well, with this mountain of a problem, they still seem to be adapting well to other functions like hosting foreign dignitaries and conducting meetings.

They have also done well in trying to keep up with the pace familiarizing with staff and premises.

Let us hope to see more work getting done as days move on since we are literally behind schedule in almost all our agenda and targets.

As Kenyans, let us all maintain the stability and continued smooth recovery from an election period that slowed down activities.