President William Ruto.
My fellow Kenyans, we have again reached that point where we reflect on the gains and pains of the year we are leaving behind, and use those as lessons to guide us into the year we are leaping into.
Too often, we make New Year Resolutions in a drunken haze. From today, we do things differently. We will go beyond lies, propaganda, public relations stunts and empty promises to actual work that can be seen, touched, felt and measured.
I have over the last few months shared my grand vision of transforming our beloved country into a Singapore, or First World, economic powerhouse. Sceptics, and we have many of those fellows with negative mindsets around us, dismiss that as some unattainable dream.
I am telling you that it is doable. That journey starts in earnest with the new year. Let me assure you that the Singapore dream is not hinged on cheap campaign slogans. Also, I am not a fool or a madman. I am fully aware that we will not get to Singapore merely on the roads, railways, bridges, airports, dams, power stations and other infrastructure projects.
The journey to Singapore will be travelled on a very deliberate programme. We must, first of all, have in place the right people to lead us there.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have looked all around me and come to the painful realisation that I do not have the men and women to lead us to Singapore.
Public assets
My Cabinet, therefore, stands dissolved with immediate effect. All Cabinet secretaries have already received their dismissal letters alongside their Christmas cards, as have all principal secretaries, senior State House staff, presidential advisors and heads of some strategic State institutions.
We thank the outgoing officials for their service, but do hope that they appreciate being released to pursue career goals more in line with their limited capacities.
We have already embarked on a talent search to recruit personnel that can deliver our grand vision. Where we cannot find the skills locally, we will go to Singapore, Germany, Malaysia, South Korea, United States, India, Ghana, Vietnam, Botswana and all other places where we can get the right men and women for the jobs at hand.
My fellow Kenyans, we cannot reimagine the future without accounting for the past. We must make radical decisions on those who have led us astray. We all know that the greatest impediment to attainment of our vision is corruption.
Those who have built their careers and wealth on theft of public assets must be called to account. They will be jailed and forced to fully return to the public all proceeds of crime, whether that be in bank accounts, businesses, stocks, land or other assets held locally or abroad. We will also move to institute the death penalty for grand corruption or economic sabotage, preferably by public firing squad.
However, we are all fully aware that our relevant institutions in their present state cannot be part of the solution. They are part of the problem. Many of their heads, too, belong in jail. After wide consultation I am inviting the United Nations and the Commonwealth to loan us the appropriate personnel to take over and revamp our governance, justice, law and order institutions.
My dear Kenyans, human rights abuses have been a blight on our nation. When my administration took office, we moved swiftly to arrest and prosecute rogue police officers who under the previous regime were responsible for torture and extra judicial executions of my campaign staffers.
Foot soldiers
We did not move far enough. We targeted the foot soldiers, but spared those who held command or political responsibility. Now, we will go for those who gave the orders.
That is not all, we will extend that to those in my administration who have carried on in similar vein. We will ensure justice for the young men and women who were abducted, tortured, killed or disappeared in the wake of the Gen Z protests.
To start with, all Cabinet secretaries who headed the Ministry of Interior during that dark epoch and afterwards, whether in acting or substantive capacity, will soon appear in court.
So will heads of the National Police Service, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the National Intelligence Service, the so-called Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, and all other officials whose acts of commission of omission were responsible for massacre of innocent countrymen and women.
Those, my fellow Kenyans, are my New Year Resolutions. Along with reluctant acknowledgment that the fish starts rotting from the head.
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Mr Gaitho, an independent journalist, is former NMG Managing Editor for Special Projects. [email protected].
