Kibicho says transition panel is busy working on power handover
Interior PS Karanja Kibicho.
Interior PS Karanja Kibicho has assured the public that a committee of top officials planning the handover of power to a new President after the August 9 elections is working on the transition.
Dr Kibicho said the immediate concern for now is to ensure that the elections are peaceful.
“We are coming to the end of this administration and by law there is the assumption of office committee that … will start [operating soon] … It will start preparing for handing over power,” he said.
Supporters of Kenya Kwanza presidential hopeful and Deputy President William Ruto, led by Garissa Town MP Adan Duale, have been asking why President Uhuru Kenyatta has avoided appointing a substantive secretary to the Cabinet.
Mr Kenyatta dropped Francis Kimemia from that role in 2014 and nominated Monica Juma in 2018, but she was rejected by Parliament. Head of Civil Service Joseph Kinyua was then appointed to the role in an acting capacity.
Dr Ruto’s allies argue that the President cannot appoint Mr Kinyua to chair the assumption of office committee without involving Parliament.
Dr Kibicho said he was not worried that someone might move to court to challenge the President’s appointment of Dr Kinyua to oversee the transition.
He said President Kenyatta is at liberty to organise his government the way he deems best.
On Madaraka Day celebrations, the last public function President Kenyatta will preside over, Dr Kibicho said the military display “will be a form of saying goodbye to its commander-in-chief”.
Policies in place
Dr Kibicho said Kenya Kwanza politicians were publicly disparaging selected government officials “instead of inviting us to go and explain what they feel is not clear to them regarding the policies in place”.
He said that when he leaves office after the August 9 polls, he will have no regrets as he has been “lucky to be alive at the right time serving Kenyans”.
He said he has learnt a lot about how the government works and has admired the leadership of President Uhuru Kenyatta that has moved Kenya from one milestone to another though citizens have been “persistently incited against him and his government”.
He said he was proud to have helped the police move from “the sad situation of five police officers sharing one gun … to the current situation where perhaps one police officer has five guns”.
The equipment programme, he said, “has been costing us Sh10 billion” annually.
Some of President Kenyatta’s achievements, he said, “are real milestones but mostly are not appreciated since they are not tall buildings”.
He cited the digitisation of government records “where you can apply for a passport, search literally for everything and even register businesses right on your phone in the comfort of your home, not forgetting that you can transact as high as Sh300,000 using the same phone since we have established that infrastructure”.
Daily hustles
He said one of his greatest thrills “is to see women walk freely to their daily hustles as early as 4am in safe environments”.
He said that before he became Interior PS, there were “routine terror attacks at a rate of a hit per month … but nowadays you do not hear of such, to tell you real things have been happening under President Kenyatta’s rule”.
He also bid Kenyans goodbye in advance, affirming that the Kenyatta administration has started preparing to relinquish power to whoever wins the August 9 elections.
About himself, he said he exits the stage with a thicker skin, especially against attacks by DP Ruto’s running mate, Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua.
“I became PS Interior in 2016 … Admitted, there were times then when I could hear Gachagua hurl insults at me and I would lose sleep … wondering why someone would hate me so much,” he told Citizen TV on Tuesday.
“Nowadays the skin has thickened to a point that I do not even [give] any thought to what he says.”
Among accusations made against him were that he used security agencies to arrest and harass Dr Ruto’s allies and that he was planning to steal the presidential vote.
