Ruto officially dumps PSCU, makes far-reaching changes to media team

President William Ruto has officially ditched the Presidential Strategic Communication Unit (PSCU).

In his first Executive Order released on Thursday night, the head of state has settled for the name Presidential Communication Service (PCS) as the identity of his new communication unit.

PCS will have a head and a deputy. In an interesting development, according to the order, the Deputy Head of the PCS will serve as the State House spokesperson.

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This is a departure from the past when the head of the communication unit also served as the state house spokesman.

During the Uhuru Kenyatta presidency, the head of the PSCU –both Mr Manoah Esipisu and Ms Kanze Dena- served as the State House spokesperson.

This was also the case during the Presidential Press Service (PPS) era of President Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki when the head of PPS was the State House spokesperson.

In the ongoing transition period, the head of PSCU Ms Dena remains the State House spokesperson.

Under President Ruto, three former journalists are currently responsible for his messaging: Hussein Mohammed, David Mugonyi and Emmanuel Tallam.

Mr Mohammed, a former news anchor and reporter at Citizen TV, was the head of communications for President Ruto’s presidential campaigns in the 2022 elections having been appointed in January this year.

For his part, Mr Mugonyi, a former Nation reporter and head of the parliamentary press unit, joined Dr Ruto’s media team as Deputy President’s spokesman in 2013 when he was first elected Deputy President alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Mr Tallam, a former KTN news reporter, served as the director of communications in the DP’s office.

It is a wait-and-see game as to whether Dr Ruto will pick one of his current pressmen or he will source externally.

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When Mr Kenyatta won the election in 2013, he tapped Mr Manoah Esipisu from the African Development Bank where he worked as a special assistant to the president to head the newly created PSCU.

Mr Esipisu served as both the head of PSCU and State House spokesman until mid-2018 when he was promoted to ambassador and deployed to the United Kingdom as Kenya’s high commissioner.

Mr Isaiya Kabira, who served as the head of PPS and State House spokesman under the late Mr Kibaki was later deployed to Australia as an ambassador before the end of Kibaki’s term.