Who will check civil servants? Ruto clarifies Mudavadi, Kuria roles
From left: Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, President William Ruto and Public Service, Performance and Delivery Management Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria.
President William Ruto has clarified roles and ended confusion between Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and his Public Service, Performance and Delivery Management counterpart Moses Kuria, on who will keep public servants in check and ensure service delivery.
Through an Executive Order released on Thursday, President Ruto said the State Department for Performance and Delivery Management under Mr Kuria’s docket will be overseeing, monitoring and evaluating the performance of all government ministries, departments and agencies.
Other roles include coordinating institutionalisation of performance management in public service and identification of innovative mechanisms to address challenges affecting public service delivery to facilitate smooth operations between ministries, departments and agencies.
On the other hand, Mr Mudavadi, who was recently added the responsibility of being the country’s CS for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, is ranked as the third senior most public servant after the President and the Deputy President. The notice also settled the dispute on the location of Mr Mudavadi's office, confirming that it should be at the Kenya Railways Corporation headquarters.
His key roles will be assisting the Head of State and his Deputy in the coordination and supervision of Ministries and State Departments thus giving him powers to direct and evaluate the performance of all ministries.
Mr Mudavadi will also be chairing the Principal Secretaries Committees and oversee government operations as well as coordinate the implementation of the national government’s legislative agenda across all ministries and state departments in consultation with the party and coalition leadership in Parliament.
The Prime Cabinet Secretary will also wield more political powers, with the President entrenching the State Department for Parliamentary Affairs under his wing.
With this position, he will coordinate the prioritisation and coordination of policies and legislation necessary to achieve the Kenya Kwanza administration’s development agenda.
Former Cabinet Secretary for East Africa Community, Adan Mohamed, made a comeback to the inner sanctums of political power after President Ruto appointed him as the Chief of Strategy Execution in the President’s Strategy and Execution Office.
In a notice, Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service Felix Koskei noted that the Head of State has made additional appointments within the ranks of the Executive Office of the President and other organs of state.
“In the implementation of his transformative economic plan for Kenya, [Dr Ruto] continues to constitute the advisory function within the Executive Office of the President and other key state organs/offices.”
The executive order comes barely a month after President Ruto made his first cabinet reshuffle that saw several allies of the president serving in the Cabinet move from their initial posts to other ministries.
These include Mr Kuria, who was moved from Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industrialisation to Ministry of Public Service, Ms Rebecca Miano was moved to Trade from Ministry of EAC and Northern Corridor with Mr Alfred Mutua moving from Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs to Tourism and Wildlife. Firebrand Alice Wahome was transferred from Water and Sanitation to the Ministry of Lands.
