Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Eleven nominees for positions in President William Ruto’s new Cabinet are expected to face tough questions when they turn up in Parliament for vetting.

Lawmakers will get down to work with past criticism in the back of their minds that they rubber-stamped predetermined positions taken by the Executive.

National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula yesterday announced that six of the nominees for Cabinet secretary who served previously will undergo fresh vetting because they were dismissed.

Said Wetang’ula: “Yes they will be vetted, and yes they will occupy public offices. The only persons who cannot occupy public offices are those who violated the law on account of Chapter Six [of the Constitution].

“These CSs did not violate the law, they were just dismissed, there are no allegations against them.”

’Fresh appointments’

The Speaker added that under the law, “these are totally fresh appointments”.

“The moment the appointing authority pronounced that he had dismissed his Cabinet, they ceased being Cabinet secretaries,” Wetang’ula said.

The vetting of the nominees by the Committee on Appointments, chaired by Wetang’ula, is expected to start anytime next week once President Ruto forwards the names to the House.

Ruto announced the nominees last Friday. Six of them served in the dissolved Cabinet.

They include Alice Wahome (Lands, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development), Kithure Kindiki (Interior and National Administration), Aden Duale (Defence), Soipan Tuya (Environment, Climate Change and Forestry), Davis Chirchir (Roads and Transport) and Rebecca Miano (Attorney General).

The other nominees are Andrew Muihia (Agriculture and Livestock Development), Margaret Nyambura (Information, Communication and the Digital Economy), Eric Murithi (Water, Sanitation and Irrigation), Deborah Barasa (Health) and Julius Migos Ogamba (Education).

Said Ruto: “I have started the process of forming a new, broad-based Cabinet to assist me in driving the urgently needed and irreversible transformation of our country.

“I hereby nominate the following first batch of 11 individuals for consideration and approval by the National Assembly for appointment as Cabinet secretaries and Attorney General.

Sharp scrutiny

Wetang’ula’s notice comes on the heels of haviing come under sharp scrutiny from young people or Generation Z for failing to do their oversight job, accused of previously being used to rubber-stamp government business whenever it is brought to the House

Gen Z, who pushed Ruto to sack the entire Cabinet on July 11, have threatened to hold countrywide protests today to push for the rejection of the re-cycled Cabinet secretaries.

With these events in the background – and though some MPs had thought the reappointed Cabinet secretaries would not be vetted afresh – lawmakers have promised to ensure that this time round, nominees will undergo proper vetting.

Molo MP Kimani Kuria said the nominees will be properly vetted.

He said: “I can assure Kenyans that we will do proper vetting of the Cabinet nominees so that we can have competent and capable people to assist our President on his pledges.”

MP Osoro mistaken

Majority Whip and South Mugirango MP Sylvanus Osoro had stated that the reappointed Cabinet secretaries would not be vetted afresh and would assume office right away.

He posted on X: “The reappointed CS’s do not need to be vetted again, going by Justin Muturi’s jurisprudence.

“They assume office forthwith. For the new ones, the public is invited to submit their reservations with evidence before the National Assembly. Mark you having a big nose is not a pull down ground.”

In 2015, Muturi, the Attorney General at the time, advised Parliament to only vet new Cabinet secretaries and permanent secretaries after former President Uhuru Kenyatta shuffled his Cabinet.

In his ruling, Muturi noted that the President has the power to reorganise his Cabinet and reassigning a Cabinet secretary to a different position does not require fresh vetting by the National Assembly.

Osoro later changed his mind, tweeting that he had since learned that the recycled CSs would be subjected to fresh vetting after all.

“I was WRONG on vetting. Just finished reading Justice Mrima’s judgement that repudiated JB Muturi’s ruling,” he wrote.

“All CS nominees will be vetted afresh. Submit your reservations to the N/A. APOLOGIES for not reading before writing. Now, read also on ways to send RUTO home. READ!!”