Eliud Owalo, the nominee for ICT and Digital Economy Cabinet post, has had an illustrious career and education.

Owalo, who was recently nominated by President William Ruto to replace outgoing ICT CS Joe Mucheru, boasts of a 22-year experience in consultancy within the Human Resources Management field.

Appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments, the Kenyatta University alumnus, said he has been practising since 2001 as an economist, management consultant and strategy expert.

According to the nominee, his areas of competencies include micro and macro-economic analyses, strategic planning, organisational restructuring, job evaluation and management of strategic change.

He has also been involved in the facilitation of various management development programs in the areas such as leadership, performance management and management of change.

Owalo, a fellow of the Institute of Human Resource Management and PhD student, has been practising as the Managing Consultant of Eliud and Associates since its inception on February 6, 2001, specifically with respect to strategic planning which is his main forte.

He boasts of extensive experience in consulting with the public sector on matters of strategic plans.

In 2008, he was the consultant for the development of the strategic plan for the Ministry of Justice, which he says was voted as the best strategic plan among ministries then.

Other ministries that have benefitted from his services include the Ministry of Lands, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Labour (twice), Ministry of Heritage, Ministry of Cooperative Development and Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and National Security.

Within parastatals, he has developed strategies for the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), Kenya School of Government, Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Limited (KETRACO), and Competition Authority of Kenya.

He said the wealth of experience he gained while developing the strategy for the Competition Authority will help him provide leadership in the ICT industry characterised by, among others, monopolistic, tendencies.

Owalo’s stint in politics

In 2012 and 2013, Owalo served as the Head of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) Presidential Campaign Secretariat and Chief Campaign Manager to the then coalition’s presidential candidate Raila Odinga.

He has had a stint within the Amani National Congress (ANC) party where he served as Strategic Advisor to former party boss Musalia Mudavadi.

In 2019, he unsuccessfully contested for the Kibra parliamentary seat on an ANC party ticket. He lost to Imran Okoth.

In the last general election, Owalo was a member of the Kenya Kwanza Alliance and served as a member of the economic advisory team which came up with the bottom-up economic model. He was also part of the team that developed the Kenya Kwanza manifesto.

He also served as Deputy Secretary General of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party responsible for policy and strategy.

He resigned and vacated the office effective October 11, 2022.

Owalo told the committee that he is fully prepared and ready to execute his mandate if cleared by the committee.

“We want to ensure that we encourage the culture of entrepreneurship through effective deployment of ICT with respect to the digital jobs that we want to create and the massive ICT literacy programme that the industry envisages to be undertaken under this ministry,” he said.