Moses Kuria dismisses Ruto’s multi-agency team on corruption, calls for institutional reforms
By Arnold Ngure, August 19, 2025Former government advisor on economic matters Moses Kuria has dismissed President William Ruto’s Multi-Agency Team (MAT) on the war against corruption as unconstitutional and bound to be short-lived.
Speaking during a live TV interview on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, Kuria indicated that the process of forming the team was suspicious and fraught with legal miscalculations.
“Somebody will go to court, for sure, and this multi-agency team will be stopped on the basis of contravening the constitutional principle that you cannot achieve by a multi-agency what you cannot achieve with the mandate given to you by the constitution,” Kuria said.
Exercise in futility
He equally observed that the involvement of the individual agencies in the fight against corruption would ensure no one takes responsibility, and that the formation of the team was an exercise in futility.
“Multi-agency means everybody’s job, which basically means nobody’s job. It is just another way of avoiding responsibility by the individual bodies concerned. As sure as day follows night, I expect somebody to go to court and stop that multi-agency thing,” Kuria noted.
“It is the whole thing of knee-jerk; coming from yesterday’s (Monday, August 18, 2025) meeting, and because of the uproar from members of parliament. It has come out as a generalization as opposed to a systematic fight against corruption. I don’t think it was well thought through.”
Multi-agency team
In a presidential proclamation issued on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, Ruto outlined the creation of a multi-agency team, which comprises 11 key agencies, under the leadership of the Executive Office of the President, with the Office of the Attorney General serving as the secretariat.
Ruto cited constitutional obligations in justifying the establishment of the multi-agency team, referencing various articles that impose duties on both the government and citizens.
The MAT comprises eleven core agencies including the Executive Office of the President as chairperson, Office of the Attorney General as secretary, National Intelligence Service, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Financial Reporting Centre, Asset Recovery Agency, Kenya Revenue Authority, Central Bank of Kenya, and Public Procurement Regulatory Authority.
The formation of the team came after Ruto accused both houses of parliament of engaging in corruption and extortionist tendencies through the parliamentary committees.